{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64532/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64532","id":"gutenberg_64532","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64532","summary":null,"tags":["Bees","Category: History - Other","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals"],"text":"This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler\n\n\n\n\n\n THE LORE\n OF THE HONEY-BEE\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n BY\n\n TICKNER EDWARDES\n\n * * * * *\n\n AUTHOR OF\n \u201cTHE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\n WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n * * * * *\n\n THIRD EDITION\n\n * * * * *\n\n METHUEN & CO.\n 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.\n LONDON\n\n * * * * *\n\n_First Published_ _August 1908_\n_Second Edition_ _October 1908_\n_Third Edition_ _1909_\n\n * * * * *\n\n TO THE\n CHAIRMAN OF THE BRITISH BEE-KEEPERS\u2019\n ASSOCIATION,\n THOMAS WILLIAM COWAN, F.L.S., ETC.,\n TO WHOSE LABOURS AND RESEARCHES\n THE WRITER, AND ALL OTHER BEE-KEEPERS,\n ARE UNDER A LASTING OBLIGATION.\n\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n CHAPTER PAGE\n INTRODUCTION: THE OLDEST CRAFT UNDER THE SUN ix\n I. THE ANCIENTS AND THE HONEY-BEE 1\n II. THE ISLE OF HONEY 18\n III. BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 28\n IV. AT THE CITY GATES 50\n V. THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE HIVE 67\n VI. EARLY WORK IN THE BEE-CITY 84\n VII. THE GENESIS OF THE QUEEN 94\n VIII. THE BRIDE-WIDOW 117\n IX. THE SOVEREIGN WORKER-BEE 127\n X. A ROMANCE OF ANATOMY 146\n XI. THE MYSTERY OF THE SWARM 174\n XII. THE COMB-BUILDERS 195\n XIII. \u201cWHERE THE BEE SUCKS\u201d 219\n XIV. THE DRONE AND HIS STORY 233\n XV. AFTER THE FEAST 248\n XVI. THE MODERN BEE-FARM 257\n XVII. BEE-KEEPING AND THE SIMPLE LIFE 267\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\nTHE COMB-BUILDERS _Frontispiece_\n FACING PAGE\nMOSES RUSDEN\u2019S BEE-BOOK 28\nBUTLER\u2019S \u201cBEES MADRIGALL\u201d 34\nJOHN THORLEY IN HIS STUDY 40\nINVERTED STRAW HIVE 50\nAN OLD SUSSEX BEE-HOUSE 60\nCOMB-FRAME FROM MODERN HIVE 72\nWINTER IN THE BEE-GARDEN 86\nDRONE-BROOD AND WORKER-BROOD 94\nQUEEN-BEE LAVING 106\nA QUEEN-CELL 110\nTHE HONEY-BEE, IN FACT AND FANCY 128\nBROOD-COMB, SHOWING ALL STAGES OF BEE-LIFE 140\nTHE BEE-NURSERY 166\nA SWARM IN MAY 174\nA MAMMOTH SWARM 178\nHIVING THE SWARM 182\nTHE SWARM HIVED 188\nHONEYCOMB CONSTRUCTION 206\nCOMB BUILT UPWARDS 216\nIN THE STOREHOUSE 230\nQUEEN-BEE IN OFF-SEASON 248\nBAD BEEMANSHIP 264\nA FOREST APIARY 272\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\nTHE OLDEST CRAFT UNDER THE SUN\n\n\nONE of the oldest and prettiest fables in ancient mythology is that which\ndeals with the origin of the honey-bee. It was to Melissa and her sister\nAmalthea, the beautiful daughters of the King of Crete, that the god\nJupiter was entrusted by his mother Ops, when Saturn, his\nfather\u2014following his custom of devouring his children at birth\u2014sought to\nmake the usual meal of this, his latest offspring.\n\nThe story is variously rendered by ancient writers. Some say that bees\nalready existed in the world, and that Amalthea was only a goat, whose\nmilk served to nourish the baby-god, in addition to the honey that\nMelissa obtained from the wild bees in the cave where Jupiter lay hidden.\nAnother account has it that the bees themselves were drawn to his place\nof concealment by the noise made by his nurses, who beat continually on\nbrazen pans to keep the sound of his infant lamentations from the ears of\nhis ravening sire. Thenceforward the bees took over the charge of him,\nbringing him daily rations of honey until he grew up and was able to hold\nhis own in the Olympian theogony. In either case Jupiter showed his\ngratitude towards his preservers in true celestial fashion. It was a\nvery ancient belief among the earliest writers that, in the single\ninstance of the honey-bee, the ordinary male-and-female principle was\nabrogated, and that the propagation of the species took place by\nmiraculous means. In explanation of this, we are told it was a special\ngift from Jupiter in acknowledgment of the unique service rendered him.\nIn one version of the fable, and in the words of a famous bee-master who\nwrote in 1657, \u201cJupiter, for so great a benefit, bestowed on his nurses\nfor a reward that they should have young ones, and continue their kind,\nwithout wasting themselves in venery.\u201d In the other, and probably much\nolder form of the legend, Melissa, the beautiful Princess of Crete, was\nherself changed by the god into a bee, with the like immaculate\npropensities; and thenceforward the work of collecting honey for the food\nof man\u2014that honey which, down to a very few centuries from the present\ntime, was universally believed to be a miraculous secretion from\nheaven\u2014was confided to her descendants.\n\nApart, however, from the old dim tales of ancient mythology, where there\nis a romance to account for all beginnings of the world and everything\nupon it, any attempt to trace back the art of bee-keeping to its earliest\ninception cannot fail to bring us to the conclusion that it is inevitably\nand literally the oldest craft under the sun. Thousands of years before\nthe Great Pyramid was built, bee-keeping must have been an established\nand traditional occupation of man. It must have been common knowledge,\nstamped with the authority of the ages, that a beehive, besides its\ntoiling multitudes, contained a single large ruling bee, divine examplar\nof royalty; for how else would the bee have been chosen to represent a\nKing in the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols? But it is not only within the\nlimit of historical times, however remote, that evidences of bee-culture,\nor at least of man\u2019s use of honey and wax in his daily life, are to be\nfound or inferred. So far back as the Bronze Age it is certain that wax\nwas used in casting ornaments and weapons. A model of the implement was\nfirst made in some material that would perish under heat. This was\nimbedded in clay, and the model burnt out, after which the mould thus\nformed was filled with the molten metal. These models, no doubt, were in\nmany cases carved out of wood; but it is certain that another and more\nductile material was often used. Bronze ornaments have been found with\nthumb-marks upon them, obviously chance impressions on the original model\nfaithfully reproduced. And the substance of these models could hardly\nhave been anything else than beeswax.\n\nBut speculation on the probable antiquity of bee-keeping need not stop\nhere. The best authorities estimate that human life has existed on the\nearth for perhaps a hundred thousand years. The earliest traces of man,\nfar back in the twilight of pal\u00e6olithic times, reveal him as a hunting\nand fighting animal, in whom the instinct to cultivate the soil or\ndomesticate the creatures about him had not yet developed. Later on in\nthe Stone Age\u2014but still in infinitely remote times\u2014it is evident that he\ntamed several creatures, such as the ox, the sheep, and the goat, keeping\nthem in confinement, and killing them for food as he required it, instead\nof resorting to the old ceaseless roaming after wild game. At this time,\ntoo, he took to sowing corn, and even baking or charring some sort of\nbread. It must be remembered that if a hundred thousand years is to be\nset down as the limit of man\u2019s life on the earth, probably the\ndevelopment of other living creatures, as well as most forms of vegetable\nlife, took place immeasurably earlier. The chances are that the world of\ntrees and flowering-plants, in which aboriginal man moved, differed in no\ngreat degree from the world of green things surrounding human life\nto-day. It is certain that the apple, pear, raspberry, blackberry, and\nplum were common fruits of the country-side in the later Stone Age, for\nseeds of all these have been found in conjunction with neolithic remains.\nEvidence of the existence of the beech and elm\u2014the latter a famous\npollen-yielder\u2014has been discovered at a very much earlier time. All the\nconditions favourable to insect-life must have been present in the world\nages before man appeared in it; and insect-life undoubtedly existed then\nin a high state of development. It would be as unreasonable, therefore,\nnot to infer that the honey-bee was ready on the earth with her stores of\nsweet-food for man, as that man did not speedily discover that store, and\nmake it an object of his daily search, just as he went forth daily to\nhunt and kill four-footed game.\n\nThere is, of course, a great deal of difference between a chance\ndiscovery of a wild-bee\u2019s nest, as a common and expected incident in a\nday\u2019s foraging, and the systematic preservation and tending of beehives\nas a source of daily food. While it is reasonable to assume that the\nfirst men used honey as an article of diet, it is probable that they were\na wandering race, never halting for long in the same locality, and\ntherefore unlikely to be bee-keepers in the accepted sense of the word.\nThey depended, no doubt, on the wild honey-stores which they happened to\nfind in their entourage for the time being. But the first sign of\ncivilisation must have been the gradual lessening of this nomadic\ninstinct. Tribes would come to take permanent possession of districts\nrich in the game, as well as the fruits and tubers, necessary for their\ndaily food. At the same time the haunts of the wild bees would be\ndiscovered, their enemies kept down or driven away, the places where the\nswarms pitched annually noted, and thus the first apiary would have been\nfounded, probably long before any attempt at cultivation of the soil or\ndomestication of the wild creatures for food was made.\n\nBiologists generally regard hunting as the oldest human enterprise under\nthe sun; but, adopting their well-known method of deductive reasoning, it\nseems possible to make out a rather better case for beemanship in this\ncategory. The prim\u00e6val huntsman must have found much difficulty in\nbringing down his game, and still more in securing it, when maimed, but\nyet capable of eluding final capture. For this purpose some sort of\nretrieving animal, fleeter of foot and more cunning than its master, must\nhave been even more necessary in prim\u00e6val times than it is in the modern\ndays of the gun. There seems to be no evidence of man indicating the\nmost elementary civilisation without sure signs also that he had trained\nand used some sort of dog to help him in his daily food-forays. But man\nmust have existed long before civilisation can be said to have come\nwithin age-long distance of him. In these times, beset with enemies, he\nmust have built his hut nest-like in some high, impregnable tree, out of\nreach of night-prowling foes; and it is scarcely conceivable that the dog\nwas his companion under these conditions. More probably he lived, for\nthe most part, on fruits and honey-comb, and such of the small creatures\nas he could capture with his naked hands. Thus, in all likelihood, the\nfirst hunter was a bee-hunter. Eolithic man may have had his own rocky\nfastness or clump of hollow trees, where the wild bees congregated; and\nwith the coming of each summer he may have followed his swarms through\nthe glades of prim\u00e6val forests as zealously as any bee-keeper of the\npresent day.\n\nSpeculation of this kind is necessarily far-fetched and fantastic, and\ncan be but half seriously undertaken with so small and inconsiderable a\ncreature as the honey-bee. But it is interesting from one special, and\nnot often adopted, point of view. There is no more fascinating study\nthan that of the ancient civilisations of the world. Egypt 10,000 years\nago, Babylon probably still earlier, China that seems to have stopped at\nfinite perfection in all ways that matter little, ages before the time of\nAbraham. But all these are of mushroom growth compared with the\nantiquity of bee-civilisation. It is only a tale of Lilliput, of a\nmicroscopic people living and moving on a mimic stage. Yet, perhaps tens\nof thousands of years before man had made fire, or chipped a flint into\nan axe-head, these winged nations had evolved a perfect plan of life, and\nsolved social problems such as are only just beginning to cloud the\nhorizon of human existence in the twentieth century. And they, and their\nintricate communal polity, have not passed away into dust, as the great\nhuman nations of bygone ages have done, and as those of the present day\nmay be destined to do, for all we can tell.\n\nWill a time come when we must learn from the honey-bee or perish? We\nhave still probably a few thousand years wherein to think it out, and\nprepare for it; but unless the world comes to an end, or human\nincreasing-and-multiplying comes to an end, one earth will eventually\nbecome too small to hold us. With this thought in mind, a study of the\nhoney-bee and the arrangements of hive-life, takes on a new interest.\nSupposing that the political economy of a beehive may be taken as a\nforeshadowing of the ultimate human state, there is no denying that we\nget a glimpse into an eminently disquieting state of things, at least\nfrom the masculine point of view. We see matriarchy triumphant; the\nfemales holding supreme control in the State, and not only initiating all\nrules of public conduct, but designing and carrying through all public\nworks. The male is reduced to the one indispensable office of sex, and\neven a single exercise of this is vouchsafed only to a few in a thousand.\nBut to create the large and permanent army of workers necessary in a\nState such as this, and to recruit it wholly from the females, it became\nnecessary to revise all rules of life from their very foundation. There\nmust have been a great renunciation among the bees, male and female\nalike, when the resolve was made to leave the whole duty of procreation\nof their kind to one pair alone of their number\u2014one pair only out of\nevery thirty thousand or so\u2014in order that the rest could devote\nthemselves to ceaseless, sexually unincommoded toil.\n\nThis may be imagined as following on a great discovery, an epoch-making\ndiscovery, changing the whole face and future of bee-life\u2014how, by the\nnursing and feeding of the young grub of the female bee, she could be\natrophied into a mere, sexless, over-intellectual labourer, or glorified\ninto a creature lacking, it is true, all initiative and almost all mental\npower, but possessing a body capable of mothering the whole nation. Here\nis socialistic political economy carried to its sternest, most logical\nconclusions. All is sacrificed for the good of the State. The\nindividual is nothing: the race is everything. \u201cThorough\u201d is the motto\nof the honey-bee, and she drives every theory home to its last notch.\nMen are pleased to call themselves bee-masters; but the best of them can\ndo no more than study the ways of their bees, learn in what directions it\nis their will to move, and then try to smooth the way for them. The\nworker-bees collectively are the whole brains in the business, and the\nbee-keeper is as much the slave of the conditions and systems they have\ninaugurated as they are themselves; while the queen-bee is the most\nwilling, and, at certain seasons, the most laborious slave of them all.\n\nIt is useless to deny that bee-polity, with its stern dead-reckoning of\ningenuity, its merciless adherence to the demands of a system perfected\nthrough countless ages, has its unpleasant and even its revolting\naspects. Nature is always wonderful, but not always admirable; and a\nclose study of the Life within the Hive brings out this truth perhaps\nmore clearly than with any other form of life, humanity not excepted.\nAbsolute communism implies incidental cruelty: it is only under a system\nof bland political compromise, of neighbourly give and take, that justice\nand mercy can ever be yoke-fellows. In the republic of bees, nothing is\nallowed to persist that is harmful or useless to the general good. Every\nindividual in the hive seems to acquiesce in this common principle\u2014either\nby choice or compulsion\u2014from the mother-bee down to the last lazy drone,\nborn into the brief plenty of waning summer days. In the height of the\nhoney-flow, the State demands a storehouse filled to the brim; and every\nbee keeps herself to the task unceasingly until death from overwork comes\nupon her, and her last load never reaches the hive. If the queen-bee\ngrows old, or her powers of egg-laying prematurely fail, she is\nruthlessly slaughtered, and her place filled by another specially raised\nby the workers to meet this contingency during her lifetime and in her\nfull view. Drones are bred in plenty, plied with the richest provender\nin the hive, and allowed to wanton through their days of insatiate\nappetite, so that no young queen may go forth on her nuptial flight\nunchallenged. But when the last princess is happily mated, and safely\nhome again in the warm, awaiting cluster, every drone is callously done\nto death, or driven out of the hive to perish. If hard times threaten,\nor the supply of stores is arrested, the old and worn-out members of the\nhive are exterminated, breeding is stopped, the unborn young are torn\nfrom their cradle-cells and destroyed, so that there may be as few mouths\nas possible to fill in the lean days to come. The signs of dawning\nprosperity or adversity are watched for, and the working population of\nthe hive is either increased or checked, just as future probabilities\nseem to indicate.\n\nBut the most bewildering, most uncanny thing of all about this\nbee-republic is the fact that, in it, has been successfully solved the\nproblem of the balance of the sexes. While all other creatures in the\nuniverse bring forth their kind, male and female, in what seems a\nhaphazard, unpremeditated way, these mysterious hive-people cause their\nqueen-mother to give them either sons or daughters according to the needs\nof the community. They lead her to the drone-cells, and she forthwith\ndeposits eggs that hatch out infallibly as drones; and in the combs\nspecially made wherein to rear the aborted females, the workers, the\nqueen is caused to lay eggs that just as assuredly produce only the\nworker-bee.\n\nIt is the oldest civilisation in the world, this wonderful commonwealth\nof the bee-people, and it is not unprofitable to examine it in the light\nof ideas which are at present only flickering up uncertainly on the\ndistant path, but which might well broaden out some day into general\nconflagration. It is conceivable that a time existed when the conditions\nof bee-life were very different from those we see to-day. Bees have\ndrawn together into vast communities, just as men are slowly, but surely,\ngathering into cities. A time may come when individual existence outside\nthe city may be as impracticable for men, as life has become for separate\nbee-families away from the hive; and then there may arise a purely\nmasculine dilemma. It may be that once the magnificent drone was of real\nconsequence in domestic affairs. Bee-life may have consisted of\nnumberless small families, each with its deep-voiced, ponderous\nfather-bee, its fruitful mother, and its tribe of youngsters growing up,\nand in time setting forth to establish homes for themselves. There is no\nreason why each one of the thirty or forty thousand pinched virgins in a\nhive should not have become a fully developed, prolific queen-bee, if\nonly the right food, in sufficient quantity, had been given her in her\nlarval state. But the need for the single large community arose. The\nsystem of a single national mother was instituted. The great\nrenunciation was made, for good or ill. And then the trouble, from the\nmasculine point of view, began.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that, strictly speaking, the honey-bee does not,\nand never did, possess a sting. What is commonly known as her sting is\nreally an ovipositor, and it is as such that it is almost exclusively\nused by the modern queen-bee in every hive to-day. But when the first\nhordes of worker-bees were brought into the world, reduced by the science\nof starvation to little more than sexless sinews and brains, they seemed\nto have conceived a terrible revenge on their ancestors. The useless\novipositor was turned into a weapon of offence, against which the drone\u2019s\nmagnificent panoply of sound and fury availed him nothing. Matriarchy\nwas established at the point of the living sword. A pitiless logic\noverran everything. Intolerance of all the bright asides of life\u2014the\nwine, the dance, the merry talk, and genial tarryings by the path,\nbeloved of all drones, bee or human\u2014darkened the day. And the result is\nonly more honey, a vaster storehouse filled to the brim with\nnever-to-be-tasted sweets, at a cost unfathomable, when the old larder\nwould have sufficed for every real need, and life might still have been\nmerry and leisurely.\n\nIt is only a fable, far-fetched, fantastic, as any told to the Caliph in\nthe \u201cArabian Nights.\u201d But there, again, the woman had her way, like the\nbee-woman before, and some day she and her kind may get it on a more\nambitious scale. And then\u2014what of the sword that was once a\nsewing-needle?\n\n \u201cSome are content with saying that they do it by Instinct, and let it\n drop there; but I believe God has given us something farther to do,\n than to invent names for things, and then let them drop.\u201d\u2014A. I. ROOT.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\nTHE ANCIENTS AND THE HONEY-BEE\n\n\n \u201cWhile great C\u00e6sar hurled War\u2019s lightnings by high Euphrates, . . .\n even in that season I, Virgil, nurtured in sweet Parthenope, went in\n the ways of lowly Quiet.\u201d\u2014_Fourth Book of the Georgics_.\n\nIT was in Naples\u2014the Parthenope of the Ancients\u2014that the \u201cbest poem by\nthe best poet\u201d was written, nearly two thousand years ago. Essentially\nan apostle of the Simple Life, the cultured and courtly Virgil chose to\nlive a quiet rural existence among his lemon-groves and his bee-hives,\nwhen he might have dwelt in the very focus of honour at the Roman\ncapital; where his friend and patron, M\u00e6cenas, the prime minister of\nOctavian, kept open house for all the great in literature and art.\n\nModern bee-keepers, athirst for the Americanisation of everything, give\nlittle heed nowadays to the writings of one whom Bacon has called \u201cthe\nchastest poet and royalest that to the memory of man is known.\u201d And yet,\nif the question were asked, What book should first be placed in the hands\nof the beginner in apiculture to-day? no wiser choice than this fourth\nbook of the Georgics could be made.\n\nFor Virgil goes direct to the great heart of the matter, which is the\nsame to-day as it was two thousand years ago. The bee-keeper must be\nfirst of all a bee-lover, or he will never succeed; and Virgil\u2019s love for\nhis bees shines through his book from beginning to end. Of course, in a\nwriter so deeply under the spell of Grecian influences, it is to be\nexpected that such a work would faithfully reproduce most of the errors\nimmortalised by Aristotle some three hundred years before. But these\nonly serve to bring the real value of the book into stronger relief.\nThrough the rich incrustation of poetic fancy, and the fragrant\nmythological garniture, we cannot fail to see the true bee-lover writing\ndirectly out of his own knowledge, gathered at first hand among his own\nbees.\n\nVirgil knew, and lovingly recorded, all that eyes and ears could tell him\nabout bee-life; and it is only within the last two hundred years or so\nthat any new fact has been added to Virgil\u2019s store. All the writers on\napiculture, from the earliest times down to the eighteenth century, have\ndone little else than pass from hand to hand the fantastic errors of the\nancient \u201cbee-fathers,\u201d adding generally still more fantastic speculations\nof their own. And until Schirach got together his little band of patient\ninvestigators of hive-life about a hundred years ago, Virgil\u2019s fourth\nGeorgic\u2014considered as a practical guide to bee-keeping\u2014was still very\nnearly as well-informed and up-to-date as any.\n\nIt is not, however, for its technical worth that the book is to be\nrecommended to the apiarian tiro of to-day. All that has become\nhopelessly old-fashioned with the passing of the ancient strawskep in the\nlast generation. The intrinsic value of Virgil\u2019s writings lies in their\natmosphere of poetry and romance, which ought to be held inseparable, now\nas ever, from a craft which is probably the most ancient in the world.\nAlmost alone among country occupations to-day, bee-keeping can retain\nmuch of its entrancing old-world flavour, and yet live and thrive. But\nif the modern tendency to make the usual unlovely transatlantic thing of\nBritish honey-farming is to be checked, nothing will do more to that end\nthan an early instillation of Virgil\u2019s beautiful philosophy.\n\nDipping into this fascinating poem\u2014with its delightful blend of carefully\ntold fact, and rich fancy, and quaint garnerings from records then\nextant, but now lost in the ages\u2014we can reconstruct for ourselves a\npicture of Virgil\u2019s country retreat near \u201csweet Parthenope,\u201d where he\nloitered, and mused, and wrought the faultless hexameters of the Georgics\nwith so much care and labour, that the work took seven years to\naccomplish\u2014which is at the rate of less than a line a day.\n\nVirgil\u2019s house stood, probably, on the wooded slope above the town of\nNaples, deep set in orange-groves and lemon-plantations, and in full\nview, to the north, of the snow-pinnacled Apennines, and, southward, of\nthe blue waters of the Bay. Vesuvius, too, with its eternal menace of\ngrey smoke, rose dark against the morning sun only a few leagues onward;\nand, at its foot, the doomed cities nestled, Pompeii and Herculaneum,\nthen with still a hundred years of busy life to run.\n\nBee-hives in Virgil\u2019s day\u2014as we can gather from certain ancient Roman\nbas-reliefs still in existence\u2014were of a high, peaked, dome pattern, and\nthey were made of stitched bark, or wattled osiers, as he himself tells\nus. Many of the directions he gives as to their situation and\nsurroundings are still golden rules for every bee-keeper. The\nbee-garden, he says, must be sheltered from winds, and placed where\nneither sheep nor butting kids may trample down the flowers. Trees must\nbe near for their cool shade, and to serve as resting-places when \u201cthe\nnew-crowned kings lead out their earliest swarms in the sweet\nspring-time.\u201d He tells us to place our hives near to water, or where a\nlight rivulet speeds through the grass; and we are to cast into the water\n\u201clarge pebbles and willow-branches laid cross-wise, that the bees, when\ndrinking, may have bridges to stand on, and spread their wings to the\nsummer sun.\u201d\n\nVirgil\u2019s method of hiving a swarm is almost identical with that followed\nby old-fashioned beemen to this day. The hive is to be scoured with\ncrushed balm and honeywort, and then you are to \u201cmake a tinkling round\nabout, and clash the cymbals of the Mother\u201d\u2014that is, of the goddess\nCybele. The bees will forthwith descend, he tells us, and occupy the\nprepared nest. When the honey-harvest is taken, you are first to\nsprinkle your garments and cleanse your breath with pure water, and then\nto approach the hives \u201cholding forth pursuing smoke in your hand.\u201d And\nthe old-time bee-man of to-day takes his mug of small-beer as a necessary\nrite, and washes himself before handling his hives.\n\nBut perhaps the great charm of the fourth Georgic consists, not in its\nnearness to truth about bee-life, but in the continual reference to the\nbeautiful myths, and hardly less attractive errors, of immemorial times,\ncopied so faithfully by medi\u00e6val writers, but not apt to be heard of by\nthe learner of to-day unless he reads the old books.\n\nVirgil begins his poem by speaking of \u201cheaven-born honey, the gift of\nair,\u201d in allusion to the belief that the nectar in flowers was not a\nsecretion of the plant itself, but fell like manna from the skies. He\nseriously warns his readers of the disastrous effect of echoes on the\ndenizens of a hive, and of the hurtful nature of burnt crab-shells; and\ntells us that in windy weather bees will carry about little pebbles as\ncounterpoises, \u201cas ships take in sand-ballast when they roll deep in the\ntossing surge.\u201d\n\nHe was a firm believer in the Divine origin of bees. To all the ancients\nthe honey-bee was a perpetual miracle, as much a sign and token of an\nomnipotent Will, set in the flowery meadows, as is the rainbow, to modern\npietists, set in the sky. While all other creatures in the universe were\nseen to produce their kind by coition of the sexes, these mysterious\nwinged people seemed to be exempt from the common law. Virgil, copying\nfrom much older writers, says, \u201cthey neither rejoice in bodily union, nor\nwaste themselves in love\u2019s languors, nor bring forth their young by pain\nof birth; but alone from the leaves and sweet-scented herbage they gather\ntheir children in their mouths, thus sustaining their strength of tiny\ncitizens.\u201d\n\nJust as marvellous, however\u2014at least to the modern entomologist\u2014will\nappear the belief, widespread among the ancients, and shared by Virgil,\nthat swarms of bees can be spontaneously generated from the decaying\ncarcass of an ox. Virgil professes to derive his account of the matter\nfrom an old Egyptian legend, and he gives careful directions to\nbee-keepers of what he seems never to doubt is an excellent method for\nstocking an apiary. There is a very old translation of the passage in\nthe fourth book of the Georgics relating to these self-generated bees,\nwhich is worth quoting, if only on account of its quaint medi\u00e6val savour.\n\u201cFirst, there is found a place, small and narrowed for the very use, shut\nin by a leetle tiled roof and closed walles, through which the light\ncomes in askant through four windowes, facing the four pointes of the\ncompass. Next is found a two-year-old bull-calf, whose crooked horns bee\njust beginning to bud; the beast his nose-holes and breathing are\nstopped, in spite of his much kicking; and after he hath been thumped to\ndeath, his entrails, bruised as they bee, melt inside his entire skinne.\nThis done, he is left in the place afore-prepared, and under his sides\nare put bitts of boughes, and thyme, and fresh-plucked rosemarie. And\nall this doethe take place at the season when the zephyrs are first\ncurling the waters, before the meades bee ruddy with their spring-tide\ncolours, and before the swallow, that leetle chatterer, doethe hang her\nnest again the beam. In time, the warm humour beginneth to ferment\ninside the soft bones of the carcase; and wonderful to tell, there appear\ncreatures, footless at first, but which soon getting unto themselves\nwinges, mingle together and buzz about, joying more and more in their\nairy life. At last, burst they forth, thick as rain-droppes from a\nsummer cloude, thick as arrowes, the which leave the clanging stringes\nwhen the nimble Parthians make their first battel onset.\u201d\n\nFor a study in the persistence of delusions, this affords us some very\npromising material. In the first place, the generation of bees from\nputrescent matter is, and must always have been, an impossibility. If\nthere is one thing that the honey-bee abhors more than another, it is\ncarrion of any description. Indeed, putrid odours will often induce a\nstock of bees to forsake its hive altogether; so it cannot even be\nsupposed that bees would venture near the scene of Virgil\u2019s malodorous\nexperiment, and thus give rise to the belief that they were nurtured\nthere. But not only was this practice a recognised and established thing\nin Virgil\u2019s time, but entire credence was placed in it throughout the\nMiddle Ages down, in fact, to so late a time as the seventeenth century.\nIt is on record that the experiment was carried through with complete\nsuccess by a certain Mr. Carew, of Anthony, in Cornwall, at an even later\ndate still.\n\nThe practice, moreover, was of infinitely greater antiquity than even\nVirgil supposed. He was probably right in giving it an Egyptian origin,\nand this alone may date it back thousands of years. In Egypt the custom\nhad a curious variant. The ox was placed underground, with its horns\nabove the surface of the soil. Then, when the process of generation was\npresumed to be complete, the tips of the horns were sawn off, and the\nbees are said to have issued from them, as out of two funnels.\n\nNearly all the ancient writers, with the exception of Aristotle, mention\nthe practice in some form or other. Varro, writing half a century before\nVirgil, says, \u201cit is from rotten oxen that are born the sweet bees, the\nmothers of honey.\u201d Ovid gives the story of the Egyptian shepherd\nArist\u00e6us as enlarged upon by Virgil, and adds some speculations of his\nown. He suggests that the soul of the ox is converted into numberless\nbee-souls as a punishment to the ox for his lifelong depredations amongst\nthe flowers and herbage, the bee being a creature that can only do good\nto, and cannot injure, vegetation.\n\nManifestly, where there is so general, and so widely independent a\ncorroboration of a story, some explanation must exist, which will alike\nbear out the truth and condone, or at least extenuate, the error. A\ncareful examination of the various accounts of bee-swarms having been\nproduced from decaying animal matter reveals one common omission in\nregard to them. All the writers are agreed that dense clouds of bee-like\ninsects are evolved; and speak of these as escaping into the air and\nflying off, presumably in the immediate quest of honey. But no one bears\ntestimony to honey having been actually gathered by these insects, nor is\nit recorded that they were ever induced to take possession of a hive, as\nordinary swarms of bees will readily do. They are spoken of more as\nenriching the neighbourhood generally, by augmenting the number of bees\nabroad, than as conducing to the well-being of any particular bee-owner.\n\nHerein, no doubt, is to be found a clue to the whole mystery. If it was\nnot the honey-bee\u2014the _Apis mellifica_ of modern naturalists\u2014which was\ngenerated from the entombed body of Virgil\u2019s unfortunate bull-calf, what\nother insect, closely resembling a bee, could have been produced under\nthose conditions? The answer has been readily given by several\nnaturalists of our own time. There is a fly, called the drone-fly, which\nexactly meets the difficulty. He is so like the ordinary honey-bee that\non one occasion, and that recently, he was mistaken for the genuine\ninsect by one calling himself a bee-expert, and holding a diploma\nofficially entitling him to the use of that name. This drone-fly would\nhave behaved almost exactly as Virgil\u2019s calf-bred bees are said to have\nbehaved, and according to the various descriptions of the matter given by\nother writers living before and since. He would issue forth in a dense\ncloud immediately his natal prison-doors were opened, and he would\ncomport himself in other ways exactly as enumerated. Finally, he would\nbeget himself joyously to the open country, as a swarm of bees would do;\nand once more the Virgilian theory of bee-production would meet with its\nseeming verification.\n\nBut having gone thus far with the drone-fly, it is difficult to resist\ngoing a little farther. We cannot leave him in the ignominious company\nof slaughtered oxen, but must give him his due of more lordly\nassociations. \u201cOut of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong\ncame forth sweetness.\u201d When Samson went down to Timnath on his fateful\nmission of wooing, and saw the carcass by the way beset with a cloud of\ninsects, we need not cast any doubt on his genuine belief that they were\nhoney-bees. He propounded his riddle in all good faith, and the form of\nit can very well be explained as a not undue stretch of allowable poetic\nprivilege. But that the creatures he saw hovering about the dead lion\nwere really bees, and that Samson actually obtained honey from the\ncarcass, is not to be accepted without the exercise of a faith that is\nundistinguishable from credulity. Many attempts have been made to\nexplain away the difficulties of the problem on natural lines, but they\nare all alike unconvincing. There is little doubt at this time that the\npart of the story dealing with the honey is nothing but a deft\nembroidering on the original legend by some later chronicler; and that\nthe insects which were seen about the dead lion were really drone-flies\ngenerated in the same fashion as those from Virgil\u2019s ox.\n\nPerhaps no better general idea is to be obtained of the condition of\nbee-knowledge among the ancients than from the writings of Pliny, the\nElder, who was born in A.D. 23. He, too, deals with the ox-born bees;\nbut the reader\u2019s interest will centre for the most part in Pliny\u2019s grave\nand careful account of the life and customs of the honey-bee, as commonly\naccepted among his contemporaries. Very few indeed of the facts he so\npicturesquely details have any real foundation in truth. Like nearly all\nthe classic writers, he had little more accurate knowledge of the life\nwithin the hive than we have of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean But he\nmade up for this deficiency, as did all others of his time, by dipping\nlargely into the stores of his own fancy as well as those of other\npeople.\n\nHis account of the origin and nature of honey is quaintly pleasant\nreading. \u201cHoney,\u201d he says, \u201cis engendered from the air, mostly at the\nrising of the constellations, and more especially when Sirius is shining;\nnever, however, before the rising of the Vergili\u00e6, and then just before\ndaybreak. . . . Whether it is that this liquid is the sweat of the\nheavens, or whether a saliva emanating from the stars, or a juice exuding\nfrom the air while purifying itself\u2014would that it had been, when it comes\nto us, pure, limpid, and genuine, as it was when first it took its\ndownward descent. But, as it is, falling from so vast a height,\nattracting corruption in its passage, and tainted by the exhalations of\nthe earth as it meets them; sucked, too, as it is, from off the trees and\nthe herbage of the fields, and accumulated in the stomachs of the bees,\nfor they cast it up again through the mouth; deteriorated besides by the\njuices of flowers, and then steeped within the hives and subjected to\nsuch repeated changes:\u2014still, in spite of all this, it affords us by its\nflavour a most exquisite pleasure, the result, no doubt, of its \u00e6thereal\nnature and origin.\u201d\n\nModern bee-keepers ascribe the varying quality in honey nowadays to the\nprevalence of good or bad nectar-producing crops during the time of its\ngathering, or to its admixture with that bane of the apiculturist\u2014the\ndetestable honey-dew. But Pliny set this down entirely to the influence\nof the stars. When certain constellations were in the ascendant, bad\nhoney resulted, because their exudations were inferior. Honey collected\nafter the rising of Sirius\u2014the famous honey-star of all the ancient\nwriters\u2014was invariably of good quality. But when Sirius ruled the skies\nin conjunction with the rising of Venus, Jupiter, or Mercury, honey was\nnot honey at all, but a sort of heavenly nostrum or medicament, which not\nonly had the power to cure diseases of the eyes and bowels, and\nameliorate ulcers, but actually could restore the dead to life. Similar\nvirtues were possessed by honey gathered after the appearance of a\nrainbow, provided\u2014as Pliny is careful to warn us\u2014that no rain intervenes\nbetween the rainbow and the time of the bees\u2019 foraging.\n\nOn the life-history of the honey-bee Pliny wrote voluminously. He tells\nus of a nation of industrious creatures ruled over by a king,\ndistinguished by a white spot on his forehead like a diadem. These\nking-bees were of three sorts\u2014red, black, and mottled; but the red were\nsuperior to all the rest. He appears to accept, though guardedly, the\nold legend that sexual intercourse among bees was divinely abrogated in\nfavour of a system of procreation originating in the flowers. He\nmentions a current belief\u2014which must have been the boldest of heresies at\nthe time\u2014that the king-bee is the only male, all the rest being females.\nThe existence of the drones he explains away very ingeniously. \u201cThey\nwould seem,\u201d he says, \u201cto be a kind of imperfect bee, formed the very\nlast of all; the expiring effort, as it were, of worn-out and exhausted\nold age, a late and tardy offspring.\u201d\n\nThe discipline in the hives was, according to Pliny, a very rigid affair.\nEarly in the morning the whole population was awakened by one bee\nsounding a clarion. The day\u2019s work was carried through on strict\nmilitary lines, and at evening the king\u2019s bugler was again to be observed\nflying about the hive, uttering the same shrill fanfaronade by which the\ncolony was roused at daybreak. After this note was heard, all work\nceased for the day, and the hive became immediately silent.\n\nHis book abounds in curious details as to hive-life. When foraging bees\nare overtaken in their expeditions by nightfall, they place themselves on\ntheir backs on the ground, to protect their wings from the dew, thus\nlying and watching until the first sign of dawn, when they return to the\ncolony. At swarming-time, the king-bee does not fly, but is carried out\nby his attendants. Pliny warns intending bee-keepers not to place their\nhives within sound of an echo, this being very injurious to the bees;\nbut, he adds, the clapping of hands and tinkling of brass afford bees\nespecial delight. He ascribes to them an astonishing longevity, some\nliving as long as seven years. But the hives must be placed out of the\nreach of frogs, who, it seems, were fond of breathing into hives, this\ncausing great mortality among its occupants. When bees need artificial\nfood, they are to be supplied with raisins or dried figs beaten to a\npulp, carded wool steeped in wine, hydromel, or the raw flesh of poultry.\nWax, Pliny says, is best clarified by first boiling it in sea-water, and\nthen drying it in the light of the moon, for whiteness. And in taking\nhoney from the hives, a person must be well washed and clean.\nMalefactors are cautioned against approaching a hive of bees at any time.\nBees, he assures us, have a particular aversion to a thief.\n\nTo the latter-day practical bee-keeper, all these minute details given by\nthe classic writers read very like useless and cumbersome nonsense; and\nit seems matter for wonder that the bees contrived to exist at all under\nsuch ingeniously complicated mismanagement, born, as it was, of an\nignorance flawed by scarcely a single ascertained fact. But the truth\nstands out pretty clearly that bee-keeping two thousand years ago was\nreally a very large and important industry. One apiary is mentioned by\nVarro as yielding five thousand pounds of honey yearly, while the annual\nproduce of another brought in a sum of ten thousand sesterces. Pliny\nmentions the islands of Crete and Cyprus, and the coast-country of\nAfrica, as producing honey in great abundance. Sicily was famous for the\ngood quality of its beeswax, but Corsica seems to have been one of the\nmain sources of this. When the island was subject to the Romans, it is\nsaid that a tribute of two hundred thousand pounds\u2019 weight of wax was\nyearly exacted from it. This, however, is such an astounding figure that\nit must be taken with a certain caution.\n\nEvidently the bees in the ancient world managed their business in fairly\ngood fashion, in spite of the ignorance of their masters, or at least of\nthe ancient chroniclers _de re rustica_. But it should always be borne\nin mind that the writers on husbandry and kindred subjects were seldom\npractical men. With the single exception, perhaps, of Virgil\u2019s\n\u201cGeorgicon,\u201d these old books relating to apiculture bear unmistakable\nevidence of being, for the most part, merely compilations from writings\nstill more ancient, or heterogeneous gatherings together of hearsays\n_and_ current fables of the time. It is certain that the men who were\nactually engaged in the craft of bee-keeping, and who knew most about it,\nwrote nothing at all. Probably they concerned themselves very little\nwith the myths and fables of bee-craft, and owed their success to hard,\npractical, everyday experience, which is the surest, and perhaps the\nonly, guide to-day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\nTHE ISLE OF HONEY\n\n\nIF we are to accept all that the old Roman historians have put on record\nto the glory of their race, we must believe that their conquering legions\nfound everywhere barbarism, and left in its place the seeds of a high\ncivilisation\u2014high, at least, in the general acceptance of the word in\nthose lurid, moving days.\n\nBut it may well be questioned whether the Britain that C\u00e6sar first knew\nwas as barbaric as it has been painted. We are accustomed to look upon\nC\u00e6sar\u2019s account of his earliest view of Albion\u2014of Eilanban, the White\nIsland, as the Britons themselves called it\u2014as the first glance\nvouchsafed to us into the history of our own land. But this is very far\nfrom being the truth. British history begins with the record of the\nfirst voyage of the Phoenicians, who, adventuring farther than any other\nof their intrepid race, chanced upon the Scilly Isles and the\nneighbouring coast of Cornwall, and thence brought back their first cargo\nof tin.\n\nAnd how long ago this is who shall say? The whereabouts of the\nPhoenician Barat-Anac, the Country of Tin, remained a secret probably for\nages, jealously guarded by these ancient mariners, the first true seamen\nthat the world had ever known. They were expert navigators, venturing\nenormous distances oversea, even in King Solomon\u2019s time; and that was a\nthousand years before the advent of C\u00e6sar. In all likelihood they had\nbeen in frequent communication with the Britons centuries before the\nGreeks took to searching for this wonderful tin-bearing land, and still\nlonger before the name Barat-Anac became corrupted into the Britannia of\nthe Romans. And it is hardly to be supposed that a people of so ancient\na civilisation, and of so great a repute in the sciences and refinements\nof life, as the Phoenicians\u2014a people from whom the early Greeks\nthemselves had learned the art and practice of letters\u2014could remain in\ntouch, century after century, with a nation like the Britons without\naffecting in them enormous improvement and development in every way that\nwould appeal to so high-mettled and competent a race.\n\nFor high-mettled and capable the Britons were even in those old, dim,\nfar-off days. C\u00e6sar\u2019s account of them, read between the lines, accords\nill with the commonly accepted notion of a horde of savages, pigging\ntogether in reed hovels, and daubing their naked bodies blue to strike\nterror into the equally savage minds of their island adversaries. We get\na glimpse of a people much farther advanced in the arts of peace and war.\nIn all probability they clothed themselves at ordinary times,\npicturesquely enough, in the furs of the wild animals, with which the\nisland abounded; and it was only in war-time that they stripped and\npainted. Old prints have familiarised us with the sight of the sailors\nof Drake and Nelson stripped much in the same way; and the blue paint of\nDruidical times is not divided by so great a gulf as the ages warrant\nfrom the scarlet cloth and glittering brass-ware of nineteenth-century\nfighting-men. As armourers the ancient Britons must have been not\nimmeasurably inferior to the Romans, and we are told that they excelled\nin at least one difficult craft, the making of all sorts of basket-ware.\n\nBut there is other testimony, apart from C\u00e6sar\u2019s, in favour of the view\nthat they were by no means a barbarous people. Diodorus Siculus, who was\nC\u00e6sar\u2019s contemporary, speaks of them as possessing an integrity of\ncharacter even superior to that commonly obtaining among the Romans; and\nTacitus, writing about a century later, ascribes to them great alertness\nof apprehension, as well as high mental capacity. Protected as they were\nby the sea, it is probable that war entered to no large extent into their\nlives, and they were essentially a pastoral people. The cultured and\ndaring Phoenician traders are certain to have prospected the coast much\nfarther eastward than is recorded, and thus to have materially hastened\nBritish advance in civilisation\u2014at least, as far as the southern tribes\nwere concerned.\n\nIt has been claimed\u2014on what evidence it is difficult to determine\u2014that\nthe Romans, besides teaching the Britons all other arts of manufacture\nand husbandry, introduced the practice of bee-culture into the conquered\nisles. But Pliny, giving an account of the voyages of Pytheas, which are\nsupposed to have been undertaken some three hundred years before C\u00e6sar\never set foot here, mentions the Geographer of Marseilles as landing in\nBritain, and finding the people brewing a drink from wheat and honey.\nThere is, however, another source of testimony on this point, of\ninfinitely greater antiquity than any yet enumerated. Long before the\nPhoenician sailors discovered their tin-country, there were bards in\nEilenban\u2014the White Island\u2014hymning the prowess of their Celtic heroes and\nthe traditional doings of their race. These old wild songs were handed\ndown from singer to singer through the ages, and many of them, still\nextant among the records of the Welsh bards, must be of unfathomable\nantiquity. These profess to describe the state of Britain from the very\nearliest beginnings of the human race. And in some of them, which are\nseemingly among the oldest, Britain is called the Isle of Honey, because\nof the abundance of wild bees everywhere in the prim\u00e6val woods. There\nwould be little profit, and no little folly, in seeking to invest these\nold traditions with any more than their due significance. But there is\nmuch in a name. And it may be conjectured that if Britain was known\namong the early Druidical bards as the Isle of Honey the natural\nconditions giving rise to the name were still prevalent, and reflected\nimmemorially in the life of the people, when C\u00e6sar first saw them\ncrowding the white cliffs above him, a huge-limbed, ruddy-locked,\nwar-like race. He records that they possessed their herds of tame cattle\nand their cultivated fields; and it is reasonable to suppose that the\nhives of wattled osier that Virgil wrote of a century later had their\nancient counterpart of woven basket hives in the British villages of the\nday.\n\nNo doubt the Romans, during their second and permanent occupation, which\ndid not take place until a hundred years after, taught the Britons their\nown methods of bee-management, and improved in numberless ways on the\npractice of the craft, which, among the British, was probably a very\nsimple and rough-and-ready affair. But it was not until the Romans had\ngone, and the Anglo-Saxon rule was fairly established in the Island, that\nbee-keeping seems to have become one of the recognised national\nindustries. The records bearing on the social life of the people at that\ntime are necessarily broken and scanty; but it is certain that honey,\nwith its products, had become an important article of diet among all\nclasses, high and low. It is difficult\u2014here in the present time, when\ncane and beet-sugar, and even chemical sweetening agents, are in constant\nand universal use\u2014to realise that, from the remotest times down to the\nfifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there was practically no other\nsweet-food of any description, except honey, in the world; and to\nestimate, therefore, what a prominent place in the industries of each\ncountry bee-keeping must then have occupied. There was nothing else but\nhoney for all purposes, and it is constantly mentioned in the old monkish\nchronicles and the curious manuscript cookery-books that have survived\nfrom the Middle Ages.\n\nIt is true that the sugar-cane was known as far back as the first century\nA.D. Strabo, writing just before the commencement of the Christian Era,\nrelates how Nearchus, who was Admiral of the Fleet to Alexander the\nGreat, made an important voyage of discovery in the Indian Ocean, and\nbrought back news of the wonderful \u201choney-bearing reed,\u201d which he found\nin use among the natives of India. There is a record that the Spaniards\nbrought the sugar-cane from the East, and planted it in Madeira early in\nthe fifteenth century. Thence its cultivation spread to the West Indies\nand South America, during that and the following century. Throughout the\nMiddle Ages it was in very restricted use among the richest and noblest\nfamilies in Europe, Venice being then the centre of its distribution.\nBut cane-sugar was little else than a costly luxury of diet, or a vehicle\nin medicine, even among the highest in the land, until well into the\nseventeenth century, when it slowly began to oust honey from the popular\nfavour. The chances are, however, that the middle and lower classes of\nEngland possessed, and could afford, no other sweetening agent but honey,\nfor any purpose, down to about three hundred years ago.\n\nAmong the Anglo-Saxons the beehives supplied the whole nation, from the\nKing down to the poorest serf, not only with an important part of their\nfood, but with drink and light as well. We read of mead being served at\nall the royal banquets, and in common use in every monastery. Even in\nthose far-off days there were wayside taverns where drink was retailed;\nand the chief potion was mead, although a kind of ale was also brewed.\nNo priest was allowed to enter these hostelries, but this could scarcely\nhave been a great deprivation, as the home allowance of mead was a\nsufficiently generous one. Ethelwold\u2019s allowance to each half-dozen of\nhis monks at dinner was a sextarium of mead, which, in modern measure,\nwould be probably several gallons.\n\nThere were three kinds of liquor brewed from honey in Anglo-Saxon times.\nThe commonest, or mead proper, which may be taken as the usual drink of\nthe masses, was made by steeping in water the crushed refuse of the combs\nafter the honey had been pressed from them. This would be strained and\nset aside in earthen vessels until it fermented and became mead. And the\nlonger it was kept, the more potent grew the liquor. Another kind, made\nfrom honey, water, and the juice of mulberries, was called Morat; and\nthis, presumably, was the beverage of the more well-to-do. A third\nconcoction, known as Pigment, was brewed from the purest honey, flavoured\nwith spices of different sorts, and received an additional lacing of some\nkind of wine. Probably this was the mead served at the royal table. The\noffice of King\u2019s Cup-bearer could have been no sinecure in those days,\nfor it was the custom of Anglo-Saxon monarchs to entertain their\ncourtiers at four banquets daily, and the quantities of liquor which the\nold records tell us were consumed on these occasions seem incredible,\neven in the annals of such a deep-drinking race. Not the least valuable\noutcome of the Norman Conquest, as far as the national temperance was\nconcerned, must have been the reform instituted in these Court orgies by\nWilliam the First, who reduced their number to a single state banquet\ndaily.\n\nIf it may be supposed that the reign of Harold marked the summit of\npopularity for our good old English honey-brew, it is equally certain\nthat with the coming of the Normans began its slow decline in the\nnational estimation. Following in the trail of Duke William\u2019s\nnondescript army came the traders, with their outlandish liquors from the\ngrape; and wine must soon have taken the place of the Saxon mead, first\namong the foreign nobles, and later among the native thanes. From that\nday mead has steadily declined in vogue, and to-day mead-making is\npractically a lost art, surviving only among a few old-fashioned folk\nhere and there in remote country places.\n\nBut it is still to be obtained; and those of us who have had the good\nfortune to taste good old mead, well matured in the wood, are sure to\nfeel a regret that no determined effort is being made to rehabilitate it\nin the national favour. Perhaps there is no more wholesome drink in the\nworld, and certainly none requiring less technical skill in the making.\nAll the ancient books on bee-keeping give receipts for its manufacture,\ndiffering only in the variety of foreign ingredients added for its\nimprovement, or, as we prefer to believe, to its degradation. For the\nfinest mead can be brewed from pure honey and water alone, and any\naddition of spices or other matter serves only to destroy its unique\nflavour. Some of the sixteenth and seventeenth century bee-masters were\nrenowned in their day for their mead-brewing; and one of the foremost of\nthem claims for his potion that it was absolutely indistinguishable, by\nthe most competent judges, from old Canary Sack. He gives careful\ndirections for the manufacture of his mead; and these can be, and have,\nindeed, recently been, followed with complete success. This mead, when\nkept for a number of years, froths into the glass like champagne, but\nstills at once, leaving the glass lined with sparkling air-bells. It is\nof a pale golden colour, and has a bouquet something like old cider; but\nits flavour is hardly to be compared with any known liquor of the present\ntime. It is interesting, however, to have its originator\u2019s authority for\nits close resemblance to Canary Sack, as this gives a clue to the\nintrinsic qualities of a wine long since passed out of the popular ken.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\nBEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES\n\n\nSTUDENTS of old books on the honey-bee are generally struck with two very\nremarkable characteristics about them\u2014their invariable fine old classic\nand romantic flavour, and their ingenious leavening of a great mass of\nquite obvious fable by a very small modicum of enduring fact.\n\nIt is difficult to realise, until one has delved deep into these curious\nold records, how completely they are dyed through and through with the\npicturesque, but mainly erroneous, ideas of the ancient classic\nbee-fathers. The writers were, almost without exception, earnest,\npractical men, whose chief interest in life was the study and pursuit of\ntheir craft. But they seem, one and all, to have laboured under the idea\nthat it was their bounden duty to uphold everything written about bees by\nthe old Greek and Roman _litterati_, and that it would be the rankest\nheresy to advance any new truth, garnered from their individual\nexperience, unless it could be supported by ample testimony from the same\ninfallible source.\n\n [Picture: Moses Rusden\u2019s Bee-book]\n\nThey seemed to look upon the works of Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny, and the\nrest, as so many divine revelations of the mystery of bee-craft,\nall-sufficing, finitely perfect; and they continually quoted from them in\nsupport of their own contentions, or in refutation of the statements of\nothers, much as teachers of religion refer doubters to Bible texts. The\nbee-masters of the Middle Ages were, however, not alone in adopting this\npeculiar attitude of mind. It seems to have been the prevailing habit of\nthe time with all classes. One might almost be justified in concluding\nthat the study of nature in those days had no other object with these\ninveterate old classicians but to support what had already been set down\nby their revered oracles. It was enough that a thing had been written in\nGreek or Latin in the literary youth of the world; it was immaculate\u2014the\nfirst and last word on the question; and if their personal observations\nseemed at variance with any statement of the old-world writers, then the\ncontradiction was only an apparent one, and could, no doubt, be easily\nresolved by a more learned exponent of these bee-scriptures of ancient\ndays.\n\nIt is certainly, at first glance, a matter for wonder that men could pass\ntheir whole lives in the pursuit of the craft, and yet manage to preserve\nuncorrupted a faith which seems so readily, and at so many points,\nassailable. But it must be remembered that any observation of the inner\nlife of the honey-bee was then an extremely difficult thing. It was next\nto impossible to see anything that was going on inside the hives in use\nat that day. Pliny mentions a hive made of what he calls mirror-stone,\nwhich was probably talc, and through the transparent sides of which the\nworking of the bees could be seen. But nothing of the kind seems to have\nbeen attempted among English bee-masters until the seventeenth century.\nMoreover, even if the whole hive had been made of clear glass, the\nobserver would have been very little the wiser. He would have had the\nouter sides of the two end combs in view, and he would have seen much\ncoming and going among the bees, with an occasional glimpse of the queen.\nBut all the wonderful activity of the hive, so laboriously ascertained by\nlatter-day observers, with the help of so many ingenious appliances, goes\non entirely in the hidden recesses of the combs; and any attempt to study\nthis life under the conditions appertaining in the Middle Ages would have\nbeen manifestly futile. It was not until Huber\u2019s leaf-hive was\ninvented\u2014when it became to some extent possible to divide the combs for a\nshort time without hopelessly disturbing the bees\u2014that any real progress\nin bee-knowledge was made. The modern observation-hive, wherein the bees\nare compelled to build their combs between glass partitions, one over the\nother instead of side by side, was a still greater advance, and rendered\nthe whole interior of the bee-dwelling available for study. But it is\nopen to objection that bee-life in such a contrivance is carried on under\ntoo artificial conditions. In a natural bee-nest, the combs are built\nroughly side by side, and the brood is reared in the centre area of each\ncomb, the surface covered by the breeding-cells diminishing outwards in\neach direction. Thus the brood-nest takes a globular form, with the\nhoney-stores above and around it; and this natural arrangement is\ninevitably destroyed in a hive where the combs are superimposed and not\ncollateral.\n\nIn the face, therefore, of the practical impossibility of learning\nanything about bees when they were housed in the usual straw-skep, the\nold bee-masters confined themselves to a repetition of the beliefs of the\nancient writers, deftly interwoven with speculations of their own, which,\nas no one was in a position to refute them, were advanced with all the\nmore daring and assurance.\n\nThey seem to have been, in the main, agreed on the point that the\nordinary generative principle, otherwise universal throughout creation,\nwas miraculously dispensed with in the single case of the honey-bee.\nMoses Rusden, who was bee-master to King Charles the Second, and who\npublished his \u201cFurther Discovery of Bees\u201d so late as the year 1679,\nbelieved that the worker-bees gathered from the flowers not only the\ngerms of life, but the actual corporeal substance, of the young bees.\n\nHe pointed triumphantly to the little globular lumps of many-coloured\npollen which bees so industriously fetch into the hives during the\nbreeding-season, and asserted that these were the actual bodily matter\nfrom which the young bees developed. He also maintained that every hive\nwas ruled over by a king, but here Rusden was evidently trying to serve\ntwo masters. No doubt he was a true \u201cAbhorrer,\u201d and heartily detested\nanything at variance with the doctrine of the divine right of monarchs.\nHe had faithfully copied from Virgil as to the gathering of this\ngenerative substance from the flowers; but he felt that, as the King\u2019s\nBee-Master, it was incumbent on him to put in a good word for the\nrestored monarchy if he could. There were still many in the realm who\nwere altogether opposed to the Restoration, and probably more who were\nwaverers between the faiths. And Rusden, doubtless, saw that if he could\npoint to any parallel instance in Nature where the system of monarchy was\nthe divinely ordained state, he would be furnishing his patron with a\nmagnificent argument in favour of his kingship, and one, moreover, which\nwould especially appeal to the ignorant and superstitious masses. No\ndoubt, however, in taking up this position, Rusden was only echoing the\nbelief immemorially established among the beemen of the past.\n\nThe single large bee, which all knew to exist in each hive, was generally\nlooked upon as the absolute ruler of the community. It is variously\ndescribed as a king or queen by writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth\ncentury, but only in the sense of a governor; and the word chosen largely\ndepended on the sex of the august person who happened to occupy the\nEnglish throne at the time. Thus Rusden very wisely discarded the notion\nof a queen-bee when he had to deal with Charles the Second. Butler,\nperhaps the most learned of the medi\u00e6val writers on the honey-bee, as\nastutely forbore to mention the word king, his book being published in\nthe reign of Queen Anne. He calls it \u201cThe Feminine Monarchie,\u201d but seems\nto have no more suspected the truth that the large bee was really the\nmother of the whole colony than any of his predecessors. Almost alone in\nhis day, however, he refuses to accept the flower theory of\nbee-generation, and asserts that the worker-bees and drones are the\nfemales and males respectively. But, he says, they \u201cengender not as\nother living creatures; onely they suffer their Drones among them for a\nseason, by whose Masculine virtue they strangely conceive and breed for\nthe preservation of their sweet kinde.\u201d He gets over the difficulty of\nthere being no drones in the hive for nine months in the year, during\npart of which time breeding goes actively forward, by asserting that the\nworker-bees immaculately conceive of the drones for the season, their\nsummer impregnation sufficing until the drones reappear in the May of the\nfollowing year. Thus, without guessing it, he was very near the\ndiscovery of one of the most astounding facts in Nature\u2014that the\nqueen-bee of a hive, after a single traffic with a drone, continues to\nproduce fertile eggs for the rest of her life, which may extend to as\nlong as three, or even four, years.\n\nButler\u2019s book is rich in the quaint bee-lore of his times. He tells us\nthe queen-bee has under her \u201csubordinate Gouvernours and Leaders. For\ndifference from the rest they beare for their crest a tuft or tossel, in\nsome coloured yellow, in some murrey, in manner of a plume; whereof some\nturne downward like an Ostrich-feather, others stand upright like a\nHern-top. In less than a quarter of an hour,\u201d he assures us, \u201cyou may\nsee three or foure of them come forth of a good stall; but chiefly in\nGemini, before their continuall labour have worne these ornaments.\u201d And\nany warm spring or summer morning, if you watch a hive of bees at work,\nyou may chance upon much the same thing. In some flowers, notably the\nevening primrose, the pollen-grains have a way of clinging together in\nthreads; and these festoons often catch in the antenn\u00e6 of the foraging\nbees, giving much the same appearance of a plume, or tassel, as Butler\nsaw in his day.\n\n [Picture: A page from Butler\u2019s \u201cBees Madrigall\u201d 1623]\n\nHe gives some advice as to the deportment of a good bee-master which is\nwell worth quoting. \u201cIf thou wilt have the favour of thy Bees that they\nsting thee not, thou must avoid such things as offend them: thou must not\nbe unchaste or uncleanely: for impurity and sluttishnesse (themselves\nbeing most chaste and neat) they utterly abhore: thou must not come among\nthem smelling of sweat, or having a stinking breath, caused either\nthrough eating of Leekes, Onions, Garleeke, and the like; or by any other\nmeanes: the noisomenesse whereof is corrected with a cup of Beere: and\ntherefore it is not good to come among them before you have drunke: thou\nmust not be given to surfeiting and drunkennesse: thou must not come\npuffing and blowing unto them, neither hastily stir among them, nor\nviolently defend thy selfe when they seeme to threaten thee; but softly\nmoving thy hand before thy face, gently putting them by: and lastly, thou\nmust be no Stranger unto them. In a word, thou must be chaste, cleanly,\nsweet, sober, quiet, and familiar: so will they love thee, and know thee\nfrom all other.\u201d Thus, the good bee-master, according to Butler, is\nnecessarily a compendium of all the virtues; and nothing more seems to be\nwanted to bring about the millennium than to induce all mankind to become\nkeepers of bees.\n\nWriters on the honey-bee in medi\u00e6val times vied with each other in their\ntestimony to the extraordinary powers and intelligence of their\nhive-people. But perhaps a story, gravely related by Butler, outdoes\nthem all. He prefaces it by declaring that \u201cBees are so wise and\nskilful, as not onely to discrie a certaine little God amightie, though\nhe came among them in the likenesse of a Wafer-cake; but also to build\nhim an artificial chappell.\u201d He goes on to relate that \u201ca certaine\nsimple woman, having some stals of Bees that yeelded not unto hir hir\ndesired profit, but did consume and die of the murraine; made hir mone to\nan other Woman more simple than hir selfe; who gave her counsell to get a\nconsecrated Host, and put it among them. According to whose advice she\nwent to the priest to receive the host: which when she had done, she kept\nit in hir mouth, and being come home againe she took it out, and put it\ninto one of hir hives. Whereupon the murraine ceased, and the Honie\nabounded. The Woman, therefore, lifting up the Hive at the due time to\ntake out the Honie, saw there (most strange to be seene) a Chappell built\nby the Bees, with an altar in it, the wals adorned by marvellous skill of\nArchitecture, with windowes conveniently set in their places: also a\ndoore and a steeple with bells. And the Host being laid upon the altar,\nthe Bees making a sweet noise, flew around it.\u201d\n\nThis story is only paralleled by another, equally ancient, wherein it is\nrelated that some thieves broke into a church, and stole the silver\ncasket in which the holy wafers were kept. They found one wafer in the\nbox, and this they hid under a hive before making off with the more\nintrinsically valuable part of their booty. In the night, it seems, the\nowner of the hive was awakened by the most ravishing strains of music,\ncoming at set intervals from the direction of his bee-garden. He went\nout with a lantern to ascertain the cause of it, and discovered it to\nproceed from the interior of one of his hives. Full of perturbation at\nthis miracle, he went and roused the Bishop, and acquainted him with the\nextraordinary state of affairs; and the Bishop coming with his retinue\nand lifting up the hive, they found that the bees had taken possession of\nthe consecrated wafer, and placed it in the upper part of their hive,\nhaving first made for it a box of the whitest wax, an exact replica of\nthe one stolen. And all around this box there were choirs of bees\nsinging, and keeping watch over it, as monks do in their chapel. \u201cWith\nwhich story,\u201d adds the narrator prophetically, \u201cI doubt not but some\nincredulous people will quarrell.\u201d\n\nIn their directions for hiving a swarm, the medieval bee-masters were\nalways quaintly explicit. The dressing of the skep which was to receive\nthe swarm was a particularly elaborate process. When the skep was new,\nyou were recommended to scour it out with a handful of sweet herbs, such\nas thyme, marjoram, or hyssop; and this was to be followed by a second\ndressing of honey and water, or milk and salt. But the preparation of an\nold skep must have been a rather disgusting affair. You were to put \u201ctwo\nor three handfuls of mault, or pease, or other come in the hive, and let\na Hogge eat thereof. Meanwhile, doe you so turne the Hive, that the fome\nor froth, which the Hogge maketh in eating, may goe all about the Hive.\nAnd then wipe the Hive lightlie with a linnen cloth, and so will the Bees\nlike this Hive better than the new.\u201d\n\nWhen the swarm was up, and \u201cbusie in their dance,\u201d you were to \u201cplay them\na fit of mirth on a Bason, Warming-pan, or Kettle, to make them more\nspeedily light.\u201d We are assured that the swarm would fly faster, or\nslower, according to the noise made. If the fit of mirth were in rapid\nmeasure, the bees would fly fast and high; but with a soft leisurely\nmusic, they would go slowly, and soon descend. This curious custom of\n\u201cringing the bees\u201d is undoubtedly of Roman origin; but whether it was\nintroduced by C\u00e6sar\u2019s followers, or those of Claudius in the first\ncentury, or whether the old English bee-masters themselves derived it\nfrom their classic reading, is hard to determine. It is still to be\nheard in many country districts, and its exponents seem to retain all the\nfaith of their forefathers in its efficacy. Probably, in medi\u00e6val times,\nwhen bee-gardens were much more plentiful than they are now, the custom\nhad at least one undeniable merit: it proclaimed to the various\nhive-owners in the vicinity that a swarm was in the air, and that its\nrightful owner was on the alert. In this way, no doubt, dishonest claims\nto its possession were largely prevented, or, at least, discouraged.\n\nThe question whether the noise made by ringing has any real effect on the\nswarming bees is still not absolutely decided. With the exception of the\nold skeppists, not a few of whom still exist in out-of-the-way rural\ncorners, modern apiculturists have long discarded the custom as a gross\nsuperstition. But it has recently been suggested that the din made by\nold-fashioned bee-keepers when a swarm is up may have a real use after\nall. It is conjectured that the cloud of bees\u2014which at first is nothing\nbut a chaos of flashing wings, the whole contingent darting and whirling\nabout indiscriminately over a large area together\u2014is really dispersing in\nsearch of the queen. The suggestion put forward is that they follow her\nby ear, as she is supposed to utter a peculiar piping sound when flying.\nThe din of the key and pan may, it is said, prevent the bees hearing this\nnote and following her in her first erratic convolutions, and thus the\nswarm is more likely to pitch on a station near home. The theory is\ninteresting, but hardly tenable. Old popular observances of this kind\nare seldom based on even the vaguest thread of fact, and it is much more\nprobable that no effect whatever is produced on the bees by the ringing.\n\nWith regard to the right of a bee-keeper to follow his swarm into a\nneighbour\u2019s land, it is interesting to have the assurance of one of these\nancient writers that \u201cif they will not be stayed, but, hasting on still,\ngoe beyond your bounds; the ancient Law of Christendome permitteth you to\npursue them whithersoever, for the recovery of your owne.\u201d But, the\nwriter adds, if your swarm goes so fast and so far that you lose sight\nand hearing of them, you also lose all right and property in them. In\nthis case you have no legal alternative but to leave the bees to\nwhomsoever may first find them. In view of recent disputes on this\nmatter, wherein the law laid down appears to have been both vague and\narbitrary, it is useful to be able to point to so ancient an authority in\nvindication of the bee-keeper\u2019s rights.\n\nThere is hardly any detail in bee-government which had not its curious\nobservance or superstition in medi\u00e6val times. One and all seemed to\nbelieve in the old Virgilian notion that bees carried about little stones\nto balance their flight during windy weather, and some even thought that\nflowers were carried about in the same way. Red-coloured clothing was\nsupposed to be particularly offensive to bees, and one is warned not to\nventure near the apiary thus attired. In the hives the old bees and the\nyoung were believed to occupy separate quarters. In regard to this, it\nis a well-attested fact that, during the height of the honey season, the\nbees found in the upper stories of a hive are principally young ones who\nhave not yet flown.\n\n [Picture: Rev. John Thorley writing his \u201cMelissologia\u201d]\n\nWe are told that if any of the bees have not returned to the hive at the\nend of the day, the queen goes out to find them and show them the way\nback. No one need be in any fear of overlooking the ruler of the hive,\nbecause she can be known by her \u201clofty pace and countenance expressing\nMajesty, and she hath a white spot in her forehead glistering like a\nDiadem.\u201d\n\nAn old writer advises that all the hives should have holes bored right\nthrough them to prevent spider-webs. He was also of opinion that the\nbees swarmed because of the queen\u2019s tyranny, and if she followed them,\nthey put her to death. He informs us that the drones were honey-bees\nwhich had lost their stings and grown fat. This was a very old idea,\nwith which the sceptical Butler dealt in the following fashion: \u201cThe\ngeneral opinion anent the Drone is that he is made of a honey-bee, that\nhath lost hir sting; which is even as likelie as that a dwarfe, having\nhis guts pulled out, should become a gyant.\u201d But the bee-masters of the\nMiddle Ages were ever intolerant of other people\u2019s mistaken ideas, while\nsupporting with the gravest argument and show of learning equally\nbenighted superstitions of their own.\n\nA little book published in 1656, and called \u201cThe Country Housewife\u2019s\nGarden,\u201d is interesting, as it was probably written for cottagers by one\nalmost in the same humble walk of life, whereas the bee-books generally\nof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were, for the most part, the\nwork of men of considerably higher station.\n\nThis book, almost alone of its kind, harbours no fine theories on\nbee-keeping, but keeps throughout to rule-of-thumb methods. The writer,\nevidently caring little for speculation as to the origin of bees, but\nconfining his remarks to practical honey-getting, takes up the following\nwholesome position: \u201cMuch discanting there is of, and about the Master\nBees, and of their degrees, order, and Government: but the truth in this\npoint is rather imagined, than demonstrated. There are some conjectures\nof it, viz., wee see in the combs diverse greater houses than the rest,\nand we commonly hear the night before they cast, sometimes one Bee,\nsometimes two or more Bees, give a lowde and severall sound from the\nrest, and sometimes Bees of greater bodies than the common sort: but what\nof all this? I leane not on conjectures, but love to set down that I\nknow to be true, and leave these things to them that love to divine.\u201d\nThe \u201cgreater houses\u201d here mentioned were, no doubt, the large cells in\nwhich the queens are bred. Just before swarming-time, as many as nine or\nten of these are sometimes to be found in one hive.\n\nThe same writer has the inevitable ill word against the drones. These,\nhe says, \u201care, by all probability and judgement, an idle kind of bees,\nand wastefull, which have lost their stings, and so being as it were\ngelded, become idle and great. They hate the bees, and cause them cast\nthe sooner.\u201d\n\nNever did creature come by so bad a name, and so undeservedly, as the\nluckless drone with these old scribes. Another of them speaks of the\ndrone as \u201ca grosse Hive-Bee without sting, which hath beene alwaies\nreputed a greedy lozell (and therefore hee that is quicke at meat and\nslow at worke is fitted with this title): for howsoever he brave it with\nhis round velvet cap, his side gowne, his full paunch, and his lowd\nvoice; yet he is but an idle companion, living by the sweat of others\u2019\nbrows. For he worketh not at all, either at home or abroad, and yet\nspendeth as much as two labourers: you shall never finde his maw without\na good drop of the purest nectar. In the heat of the day he flieth\nabroad, aloft, and about, and that with no small noise, as though he\nwould doe some great act: but it is onely for his pleasure, and to get\nhim a stomach, and then returns he presently to his cheere.\u201d\n\nBut it is among the writings of the old beemen with a taste for the\nquack-doctor\u2019s art that some of the quaintest notions are to be found.\nWe are told that honey, well rubbed into the scalp night and morning, is\na sovereign remedy for baldness, and if it was mixed with a few dead bees\nand a little old comb well pounded, it was still more efficacious. Dead\nbees, dried and reduced to a powder, form a principal ingredient in all\nsorts of nostrums of the time. This powder, mixed with water and drunk\nevery morning, is recommended as an unfailing cleanser to the system.\nAnd if the heads of a large number of bees are collected, burned, and the\nashes compounded with a little honey, it makes an excellent salve for all\nsorts of eye disorders.\n\nThere was a famous preparation called Oxymel, which was in great vogue in\nmedi\u00e6val times. It seems to have been nothing more than a mixture of\nhoney, water, and vinegar; but it was accredited with extraordinary\nvirtues. It was an infallible cure for sciatica, gout, and kindred\nailments; and one writer also tells us that it was \u201cgood to gargarize\nwith in a Squinancy.\u201d\n\nBut honey and dead bees were not the only products of the hives which\nwere pressed into medical service. Wax also was believed to have\nexceptional curative powers in all sorts of human ills. It had the\nfaculty of curing ulcers, and \u201cif the quantity of a Pease in Wax be\nswallowed down of Nurces, it doth dissolve the Milke curdled in the\npaps.\u201d It was also used as an embrocation for stiff joints and aching\nmuscles. The supposed curative value of beeswax in its natural state,\nhowever, was as nothing compared to its capabilities when distilled.\nThis preparation, known as Oil of Wax, and famous at the time all the\nworld over, seems to have come nearer the ideal of a panacea\u2014a\ncure-all\u2014than anything else before or since. The making of Oil of Wax\nseems to have been a very complicated affair. First the wax had to be\nmelted, poured into sweet wine, and wrung out in the hands. This was\ndone seven times, using fresh wine at each operation. Then the wax was\nplaced in a retort with a quantity of red-brick powder, and carefully\ndistilled. A yellow oil came over into the receiver, and this was\ndistilled a second time, when the \u201cCoelestiall or Divine medicine\u201d was\nready. Miraculous portents seem to have accompanied its preparation, for\nwe are told that \u201cin the coming forth of this Oile there appeareth in the\nReceiver the foure Elements, the Fire, the Aire, the Water, and the\nEarth, right marvellous to see.\u201d\n\nThe power to stop immediately the falling out of the hair, heal the most\nserious wounds in a few days, and cure toothache and pains in the back,\ncan be reckoned only among its minor virtues. Much greater properties\nwere claimed for Oil of Wax, for it not only \u201ckilleth worms and cureth\npalsy and distempered spleens, but it bringeth forth the dead or living\nchild.\u201d\n\nOne last extract must be given from the same old writer. It relates to\nthe generation of bees, and brings us out, perhaps, on the highest\npinnacle of the marvellous. After a learned dissertation on the method\nof breeding bees from a dead ox\u2014assuring us, however, that if we can\nprocure a dead lion for the purpose, it will be much better, as then the\nbees will have a lion-like courage\u2014the writer goes on to explain how bees\nmay be produced in another way. We are to save all dead bees, burn them,\nsprinkle the ashes with wine, and then leave them exposed to the sun in a\nwarm place. In a little while, we are told, all the bees so treated will\ncome to life again, and we shall then have a new stock ready for hiving.\n\nDipping into these time-worn records of the Middle Ages, with their\nembrowned, scarce legible type and their antiquated phraseology, one\ncomes at last to realise how very little the old bee-masters actually\nunderstood of the true ways of the honey-bee, or, indeed, of any real\nessential in bee-craft. And yet the production of honey and wax must\nhave been an industry very largely developed in those days. Somehow or\nother, in spite of archaic theories and useless interference in the work\nof their hives, these people must have contrived to supply a market of\nwhose magnitude we can nowadays form little conception. The trade in wax\nalone must have been a very large one, for, except in the poorest\ntenements, this formed the only available source of artificial light.\nAnd honey was in much more universal demand than it is now, because\ncane-sugar could hardly have developed into a serious rival as a\nsweetening agent among the masses at a time when it stood, perhaps, at\ntwo shillings a pound.\n\nBut in speculations of this kind, it must be borne in mind that, although\nthe men who wrote about bees displayed so picturesque an ignorance in all\nmatters appertaining to their charges, these formed a very small minority\namong the bee-keepers as a whole. Probably the bulk of the supply in\nhoney and wax came from bee-gardens, whose owners neither knew nor cared\nanything about books, and were concerned only in the practical side of\nthe work, where their knowledge, hereditary for the most part, amply\nsufficed for the part they played in it.\n\nMoreover, it is only in latter-day, scientific apiculture that the work\nof the bee-master counts to any great extent. Nowadays, under the light\nof twentieth-century knowledge, this is competent to bring about the\ndoubling, and even trebling, of the honey-harvest possible under the\nancient methods. But the old skeppists did, and could do, little more\nthan look on at the work of their bees, and here and there put a scarce\navailing hand to it. Nearly all the credit for the results achieved in\nthose days must be given to the bees themselves, who, untold ages before,\nhad brought to finite perfection their remarkable systems and policies.\nIn all likelihood the bee-masters, the practical men who owned the hives,\nhad much the same shrewd faculty of leaving things alone in far-off times\nas we observe among the skeppists of the last generation. In many ways,\nwhat they did at last come to do they did ill, notably in the apparently\ninsane practice of destroying the bees to obtain the honey. But even\nthis was not so foolish a procedure as it appears to-day. It was a plain\nmatter of business, according to the lights of the time. Their process\nwas to condemn to the sulphur-pit all the lightest and the heaviest of\ntheir stocks. Experience taught them that the weak colonies stood little\nchance of getting through the winter unless they were artificially fed;\nwhile if the bees of the large colonies were preserved, after being\nrobbed of their stores, they would need the same provision. It was a\nmatter of arithmetic. Artificial feeding was then a much more costly\naffair than it is to-day, and the reckoning came out well on the side of\nslaughter. The worst part of the business, so far as modern scientific\nbee-breeders are concerned, is that the old system of destruction tended\nto preserve only those strains of bees who were inveterate swarmers;\nwhile the steady, industrious stay-at-homes, who accumulated the largest\nstores of honey, were invariably exterminated. This is a fateful legacy\nto have passed on, when we consider that one of the chief aims of modern\nbee-science is to abolish swarming altogether. The swarming habit is one\nof the greatest obstacles in the way of a large honey yield, and until a\nrace of non-swarming bees has been evolved by modern breeders there will\nalways be this element of uncertainty in the honey harvest.\n\nLatter-day beemen, therefore, join the chorus of disapproval of this old,\nsenseless custom of bee-burning, rather because it has given them the\ntask of undoing the work of ages before any progress is possible, than\nfrom the generally accepted humanitarian reasons.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\nAT THE CITY GATES\n\n\nIN a village in Southern Sussex, close under the green brink of the\nDowns, there live two bee-keepers who represent, in their widely\ndivergent methods and outlook, the extremes of beemanship as still extant\nin modern times.\n\nThe one dwells in a little ancient thatched cottage, set in the heart of\nan old-fashioned English garden, where dome-shaped hives of straw are\ndotted about at random amidst a wild growth of the old-fashioned English\nflowers. The other has built himself a trim villa on a hillside, topped\nwith a sheltering crest of pine-wood; and here he has established a great\nmodern honey-farm, replete with every device and system of management\nknown to apiarian scientists throughout the two worlds.\n\n [Picture: Inverted straw bee-hive, showing natural arrangement of combs]\n\nOne might suppose, on leaving the village street on a fine May morning\nand coming upon these two settlements in the open country beyond, that\nall the romance and old-world flavour of bee-keeping were inevitably to\nbe found in the ancient bee-garden, where the droning music of the hives\nseems to originate in the thicket of blossoming lilac, and red-may, and\nveronica, the hives themselves being the last things one noticed in such\na tangle of bright-hued flowers. To expect sentiment in the other\nquarter\u2014a great cindered tract of country, with its long parallel rows of\nmodern hives, all painted in various colours, its dwelling-house that\nmight have been transplanted bodily from a well-to-do London suburb, and\nits line of outbuildings, with their bustle of business, and coughing\noil-engine, and reverberation of hammer and saw\u2014was to expect something\nevidently out-of-date and impossible. As well look for art in a Ghetto\nas to seek reverence for ancient bee-customs in a twentieth-century\ntrading concern such as this, established to supply the market for honey\njust as a Manchester factory turns out calico and corduroy.\n\nMany lovers of country life, peripatetic artists and chance pedestrians\nfor the most part, came to the village with this notion firmly impressed\nupon them, and, visiting the old bee-garden and finding the old beautiful\nthings there in abundance, went no farther, and became no wiser. They\nwandered round the crooked, red-tiled paths of the garden with its\nancient proprietor; stooped under bowers of living gold and purple; waded\nthrough seas of scarlet poppy and blue forget-me-not and tawny\nmignonette; came upon old beehives in all sorts of shady, unpremeditated\ncorners; and steeped themselves in medi\u00e6valism up to the eyes. The very\nsong of the bees seemed to belong entirely to past days. None, surely,\nbut a hopeless Vandal could put a colony of bees in one of the ugly\nsquare hives, and expect them to go honey-seeking in the old harmonious,\nhappy way, sanctified of the ages. And so they never ventured up the\nhill to the great bee-farm, but kept to the garden below, and listened by\nthe hour together to the quaint talk of its white-headed, smock-frocked\nowner, or stood valiantly at the foot of the ladder when he climbed up to\ndislodge a swarm from the moss-grown apple-boughs, or helped him to scour\nthe new straw skeps with handfuls of mint and lavender, or beat out\nweird, unskilful music with the door-key on the old brass-pan when a\nswarm was high in the air.\n\nMuch could be learnt, it is true, from quiet days spent in the old\nbee-garden, especially in May, before the earliest swarms were ready to\nforsake the hives.\n\nThe first faculty to be acquired was that of wandering among the bees, or\nstanding between their straw houses, undismayed at their incessant and\noften terrifying approaches. Whatever confidence one may place in\nbee-keepers\u2019 assertions that their bees never sting, it is a bold man who\ncan preserve entire equanimity when bees are settling continuously on his\nhands, his face, his clothing, and a whole flying squadron of them are\nshrilling vindictively about his ears. Nothing will come of it, he\nknows, if only he can keep still. But the tendency to turn and flee, or\nat least to beat off these minatory atoms with wildly waving arms, is all\nbut irresistible for the novice. It is only their way, he is assured, of\nexpressing or of satisfying their curiosity; and, this being done, they\nfly off harmlessly enough to give a good report of him to the ruling\npowers within the hive. But he knows that this report is sometimes\nanything but good. At least, there are a few luckless individuals in the\nworld who dare not venture within a dozen yards of a beehive without\nbeing set upon unmercifully, and chased by an angry squad of these tart\nvirgins for the space of a quarter-mile. Moreover, in certain states of\nthe weather\u2014when thunder is about, and the air is tense and still\u2014bees\nwill often sheath their barbed daggers in any human skin, even that of\ntheir owner, who has gone among them daily all the season unmolested.\nThere is, therefore, a fateful element of chance in all near watching of\nbeehives, a sensation of being under fire\u2014fine discipline enough, but,\nfor the timorous, hardly to be reckoned among the easy joys of existence.\n\nThese first deterrents, however, being happily overcome, the watcher is\nsure to be caught up, sooner or later, in the sheer fascination of the\nthing, and to find himself recklessly, almost breathlessly, looking on at\nwhat is nothing else than a great informing pageant of life.\n\nHe stands, as it were, a stranger at the gates of a city, inhabited by\nthe most interesting, and in some respects the most advanced, people in\nthe world. Of the inner life of the city, apart from the deep busy\nmurmur that surges out to him, he learns nothing, and will learn nothing\nuntil he puts sentimental pride in his pocket, and makes pilgrimage to\nthe great bee-farm on the hill. But here, in the meanwhile, is food\nenough to satisfy the keenest appetite for the marvellous. In and out\nthrough the yawning entrance-gate of the city, under the hot May\nsunshine, there are thousands of busy people coming and going. The broad\nthreshold of the hive is completely hidden under opposing streams, the\none setting out towards the fragrant fields and hedgerows, the other\ntumbling and seething in, almost every bee dragging after her some kind\nof mysterious treasure.\n\nThe outgoing bees start on their journey in two different fashions. Some\nemerge from the hive and rise at once on the wing, lancing straight off\ninto the sunshine; and these are foragers, who have already made several\njourneys afield since the sun broke, hot and rosy, over the eastward\nhill. But others, essaying their first excursion for the day, creep out\nof the murmurous darkness of the hive, and come with a little impetuous\nrush to the edge of the alighting-board. Here they pause a moment to\nflutter their wings and rub their great eyes free of the hive-twilight.\nAnd then they lift into the air, hover an instant with their heads\ntowards their dwelling, taking careful stock of it, sweep up into the\nblue, and volley away with the rest towards the distant hill-side, white\nwith its bridal wreath of clover-bloom.\n\nThe homing bees move much more sedately. They come sailing in like\nbronze argosies laden to the water\u2019s edge. Those bearing full sacs of\nclover-juice for the honey-making seldom carry an outside load of pollen\nas well. They have all to do in bringing their distended bodies to a\nsafe anchorage on the entrance-board, and charge headlong into the hive,\npossessed of only one idea\u2014to hand their garnered sweets over to the\nfirst house-bee they chance upon, and then to hurry out in search of\nanother load. The pollen-bearers are impelled by the same white-hot\nenergy; but their cargoes are infinitely more cumbersome, and demand a\nmore leisurely pace. Some with panniers, heaped up with a deep\norange-coloured material, must rest awhile on the threshold before\ngathering energy enough to drag their glowing burdens through the city\ngate. Others just fail to make the harbour, and sink down on to the\ngrass below, to wait for the same freshet of strength that is finally to\nbring them into the security of the populous haven. Scores of them do\nnot try for harbour at first tack, but, coming safely into the calm\nwaters of the garden, rest awhile on the nearest leaf or blossom, panting\nand tremulous, until they are able to wear sail for the last reach home.\n\nThere is infinite diversity in the loads of these pollen-carrying bees.\nHardly a colour, or shade of colour, in the rainbow fails to pass during\nevery moment across the thronging way. Every bee carries a half-globe of\nthis substance, beautifully rounded and shaped, on each of her two\nhind-legs. It is possible, by marking the colour of her burden, to tell\nwith certainty what flower she has been plundering on each of her trips.\nThis bright orange, which makes always the largest and heaviest bales in\nthe stream of merchandise, is from the dandelions. From the\ngorse-flowers come loads of deep rich brown almost as weighty. The\ncharlock, that mingles its useless, wanton beauty with every farm-crop,\nyields the bee interminable gold. White clover, red clover, sainfoin,\nall load up the little hive coolies with different shades of russet.\nFrom the apple-orchards come bursting panniers of pale yellow; the\nblackberry-blossom yields pollen of a delicate greenish-white. When\nsummer comes, and the poppies make scarlet undertones amidst the wheat\nand barley, these winged merchant-women stream homeward with their\npollen-baskets laden with funereal black.\n\nBut, if you watch a hive at work on any bright spring or summer morning,\nyou will see single bees occasionally pass with loads whose source has\nnever yet been fathomed. The lean, glistening, rufous stuff that is\ncontinually borne through the hustling crowd is resin gathered from\npoplar or pine, and used to glue the straw hive down to its base-board,\nor to stop up draughty crevices and useless corners, or, diluted into\nvarnish, to paint the honeycombs with an acid-proof, preservative film.\nBut now and then comes a bee with a load whose colour shines up like a\ndanger-signal in darkness. Brilliant scarlet, or soft rose-crimson, or\npale lavender, or gleaming white\u2014who shall say in what far, forgotten\nnook of the country-side she has been adventuring, or what rare blossom\nshe has chanced upon in the wilderness, and, despoiling it of its maiden\ntreasure greedily, has quickened into duplication the beauty that was its\nreason for life?\n\nYet the greatest wonder about all this pollen-gathering is that each\nseparate load has been taken entirely from one species of flower. The\nlittle half-spheres are packed into the pollen-cells indiscriminately,\norange on brown, pale yellow mingled with green, or buff, or grey. But\neach pair of panniers, representing a single journey, contains the\npollen-dust of one kind of blossom alone. Going out into an English lane\nor meadow to watch the bees at work, the first conviction borne in upon\nan observer is that the bees are darting about from flower to flower\nwithout other thought than to load up from any and every capable blossom\nthat stands in their way. But closer scrutiny reveals a curious plan and\norder in this, as in everything else that the honey-bee undertakes.\nTracing an individual bee in her progress along the flowery verge of the\nlane, you will soon see that she visits only one species of blossom. If\nshe starts on hawthorn, it will be hawthorn all the way. If her load of\nwillowherb-nectar or pollen is not yet a full one, she will overpass a\nscore of tansy-knots or waving jungles of meadow-sweet, just as inviting\nand resourceful, apparently, to reach the one scanty patch of purple at\nthe end of the lane.\n\nWhy she should be at such pains to keep the pollen separate as she\ngathers it, only to get it inextricably mingled with every other kind in\nthe storehouse at home, is a problem that none but a bee can solve. But\nall the honey-bee\u2019s reasons and motives in life are made up of a curious\nblend of cold-drawn sense and sentiment; and it may be inferred that need\nand fancy have an equal influence in guiding her in this, as in\neverything else she does, from her cradle-cell to her grave. Not\naltogether without seriousness, it may be hazarded that quite as probable\na reason for her way of pollen-gathering is that she deems a certain\nshade of colour makes a more becoming flying-robe, as that she keeps each\nload of pollen pure, unblended, because of some imperious, economic need\nof the hive. The factor of sex, in all observation of the ways of the\nhoney-bee, is no more to be considered a negligible one than it is in the\ncritical contemplation of the human species of hive.\n\nAll this incessant coming and going of the busy foragers is alluring\nenough to the looker-on, but there is evidence of many other activities\nequally interesting. The work of collecting nectar and pollen is\nobviously only a part of the duties of this self-immolated spinster-race.\nHere and there in the seething, hurrying crowd there are bees who do not\nmove with the rest, but, anchored securely in the full force of the\nliving current, with heads lowered and turned towards the hive, are\nengaged in fanning their wings, and this so swiftly that nothing of the\nwing but a little grey mist can be seen. Looking more carefully, you\nwill make out that these bees are arranged in nearly regular rows, one\nbehind the other, in open order, so that the conflicting tides of\nforagers can pass uninterruptedly between. If the watcher is bold enough\nto bring his ear down to the level of the hive, he will make out a steady\nhissing noise that rings clear above all the din and turmoil made by the\nincessant travellers to and fro. These rows of fanners are seen to\nstretch from the hive-door right to the edge of the footplate, but\nprincipally on one side; and still closer observation will reveal the\nfact that there is a regular system of relief among them. Though the\ngeneral volume of sound never abates one jot, every few minutes one or\nanother of these stationary bees moves away, her place being immediately\ntaken by another, who settles down to the common task in line with the\nrest. The reason for all this is plain enough: the fanners are engaged\nin ventilating the hive, drawing a current of vitiated air through the\nentrance on one side, which flanks, but does not oppose, a corresponding\ncurrent of pure air sucked in on the other.\n\nAll through the warm days of spring and summer this fanning squadron is\nconstantly at work; nor does it cease with the darkness. Chill nights\nfind the ranks weakened and reduced to perhaps only a few bees, or even\nto none at all when a cold snap of weather intervenes. But in the\ndog-days, or, as the ancients used to say, when Sirius, the honey-star,\nis shining, the deep sibilant note of these fanners rises, in a populous\napiary, almost to the voice-strength of a gale of wind. To come out then\nunder the stars of a summer night, and stand listening in the tense,\nfragrant darkness to this mighty note, is to get an impression of\nbee-life unattainable at any other season. In the daytime the sound is\nintermingled, overwhelmed, by the chorus of the flying bees. But now all\nare safely at home. Each hive is packed from floor to roof with tens of\nthousands of breathing, heat-producing creatures: the necessity for\nventilation is quadrupled, and, far and wide in the bee-garden, the\nfanning armies are setting to their work with a will.\n\n [Picture: An old Sussex Bee-house]\n\nThe freshman at this fascinating branch of nature-study, brought out into\nthe quiet night to hear such gargantuan music, is always strangely\naffected by it, some natures incredibly so. In all the great placid void\nof darkened hill and dale around him, in the whole blue arch overhead,\nalive with the flinching silver of the stars, there is no sound but a\nchance trill of a nightingale, the bark of a shepherd\u2019s dog on the\ndistant upland, or, now and then, the droning song of a beetle passing\ninvisibly by. All the world seems at rest, save these mysterious people\nin the hives; and with them the sound of labour is only redoubled.\nBending down to the nearest hive in the darkness, the note comes up to\none like the angry roar of the sea. A light brought cautiously to bear\nupon it, discloses the alighting-board covered with rows of bees,\nworking, as it were, for their lives; while other bees continually wander\nin and out of the entrance\u2014the sentries that guard it night and day, just\nas soldiers guarded the gates of human cities in olden times. The novice\nat bee-craft, even the most staid and matter-of-fact, is invariably\nplunged into marvelling silence at the sight. But if the night be\nexceptionally hot and oppressive, and the fanning army unusually large,\nthe bee-master with an eye for dramatic effect generally finishes the\ntiro\u2019s wonderment by showing him an old trick. He lowers the candle\nuntil the flame is just behind the squadron of ventilating bees, and at\nonce all is darkness: the current of air drawn out of the hive has proved\nstrong enough to extinguish the light.\n\nIt has been said that there are guard-bees who watch the hive-door day\nand night. To the unskilled human eye one bee looks very like another,\nand it is difficult to understand how, in the many thousands that pass,\nthe guards manage to detect an intruder so unerringly, and to eject her\nwith such unceremonious promptitude as is always shown. Probably it is\nnot by sight alone that these occasional interlopers are singled out.\nThe sense of smell in the honey-bee is extraordinarily acute, and this,\nno doubt, assists the guards in their difficult work. It is well known\nthat a queen-bee must possess a very distinct odour, as her mere presence\nabroad, even when shut up in a box, will attract the drones from all\nquarters. In all likelihood the peculiar aroma from each queen-bee\nimpregnates the whole colony, and thus the guard-bees are able at once to\ndistinguish their own kin from that of alien stocks.\n\nStill watching the outside life of the hive in the old bee-garden, many\nother interesting things come to light. In such an establishment, even\nif it be only an old-fashioned straw skep, perhaps more than twenty\nthousand individuals are located; and obviously some regular system of\ncleaning and scavenging is indispensable. This work can be seen now,\ngoing on uninterruptedly in the midst of all the other busy enterprises.\nEvery moment bees come labouring out, bearing particles of refuse, which\nthey throw over the edge of the foot-board, and at once shoulder their\nway back for another load. Other bees appear, carrying the bodies of\ncomrades who have died in the hive; and every now and then one comes\nstruggling through the crowd, bearing high above her a strange and\nghastly thing, perfect replica of herself, but white throughout, save for\nits black beady eyes. This is the unborn bee, dead in its cradle-cell.\nInfant mortality is an evil not yet overcome even by the doughty\nhoney-bee, and many are carried out thus, especially in early spring.\nWatching these undertakers of the hive in their gruesome but necessary\nwork, a singular fact can be noted. While all other debris is merely\ncast over the brink of the entrance-board, where it accumulates day by\nday on the grass below, these dead larv\u00e6 are never disposed of thus.\nThey are carried right away, their bearers taking wing and flying\nstraight off over the hedgerow, to drop them at harmless distance from\nthe neighbourhood of the hive.\n\nThere is still another kind of work going briskly forward round the gates\nof the bee-city. Certain among these stay-at-home bees seem to exercise\na sort of common overseership. They help those weighed down with too\nheavy a cargo to reach the city gates. If a lump of pollen is dropped in\nthe general scuffle, these bees seize it and take it into the hive.\nSometimes a bee comes eddying downward, smothered from head to foot with\npollen, like a golden miller, and she is immediately pounced upon by\nthese superintendents, and combed free of her incommodious treasure.\nOthers see to the grooming of the young bees, about to essay their first\nflight. The youngster sits up, protruding her tongue to its fullest\nextent, while half a dozen bees gather round her, licking and stroking\nher on every side. At last her toilette is done, and she is liberated,\nwhen, with a little flutter of her wings, she lifts high into the blue\nair and sunshine and makes off with the rest to the clover-fields,\nglittering afar off in the joyous midday light.\n\nFor insensibly the hours have worn on\u2014it is noon\u2014and the tense thronging\nlife, the deep rich labour-song, of the bee-garden seem to have reached\ntheir height. But suddenly a greater noise than ever arises on all\nsides: a steady stream of bees, larger and bulkier than the rest, is\npouring out of every hive. The drones, the lazy brothers of these\nlaborious vestals, have roused at last from their sleep, and are coming\nabroad for their daily flight. In twos and threes, in whole battalions,\nthey hustle out, and begin their noontide gambols about the hive, filling\nthe air with a gay, roistering song. In a little while they will be all\ngone to their revels, and the bee-garden will seem, by comparison,\nstrangely quiet. But now the sudden accession of energy is unmistakable.\nWith the awakening of the drones there seems to be a new spirit abroad.\nThe air is no longer filled to overflowing with busy foragers. Many of\nthese have joined the dance round the hives, so that each bee-dwelling is\nthe centre of a singing, gambolling crowd, moved rather by a spirit of\nplay, almost of idleness. But this brief moment of relaxation soon\npasses. The drones betake themselves to their marital pleasuring in the\nfields. The noisy midday symphony dies down to the old steady monotone\nof work. And the watcher at the gates of the bee-city turns to retrace\nhis steps down the flower-garlanded way of the old pleasance, satiated\nwith wonders, yet not satisfied, his curiosity only quickened a\nthousandfold for that which has been inexorably held from him, a glimpse\nof what is happening behind those baffling walls of straw.\n\nWending slowly homeward, and pondering, he asks himself many questions.\nWhat is the reason, the final outcome, of all this earnest, well-directed\nlabour? What is done with the pollen that has been carried in all the\nmorning long? Where there is obviously so much system, and unanimity,\nand ingenious division of endeavour, there cannot fail to be a supreme\nand governing intelligence to allot the part that each must play. This\nstory of a queen\u2014of a single bee, larger than all the rest, to whom all\npay allegiance, and who spends her whole life in the dim labyrinth of the\nhive, like the Pope in the Vatican\u2014is it a truth, or only a figment of\nthe ignorant, bucolic brain? If this queen exist, if every hive have\nindeed its absolute monarch, who directs the whole complex life and\npolicy of the bee-city, where in the scale of reasoning creatures must\nshe be placed?\n\nAnd then, if he be wise, the student will learn at last to give the\npicturesque old bee-garden its true appraisement. Ancient things\nconserve their beauty, and win the love of the right kind of lovers, more\nand more with every century that glides by. Only their usefulness, their\nimport in the tide of human knowledge and progress, has gone with the\nyears. It is so with the bee-garden under its Maytide robe of green\nleaves and rainbow blossoms. It is beautiful in its glad appearances,\nits echo of old voices, its odour of the sanctity in ancient ways and\ndays. But it can tell us nothing of all we want to know. It can only\nask us riddles to which we have no answers. For these we must set aside\nold fanciful scruples; turn our backs, once for all, on its enchantment\nand its sweetness; bend our steps unswervingly towards the great modern\nbee-farm on the hill.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\nTHE COMMONWEALTH OF THE HIVE\n\n\nA DOCTOR DRYASDUST will manage to impart to the truths he meddles with a\ndisastrous air of dulness and stagnation; but to walk in a fools\u2019\nparadise of beautiful, artistic error is to lay oneself open to an\ninfinitely worse fate. There never was a truth in Nature that was dull\nor uninteresting, except in its human presentment. There never was a\npretty worthless fiction that did not show its dross and tinsel when\nbrought out into the searching light of day. Romance, the spirit of\npoetry, have largely changed their venue of recent years. The\nunconscionable delver among old things, old thoughts, old conventions, on\nthe strand of Time, has tarried so long in his one little florid corner\nthat he is in some danger of being caught by the tide. He must soon\neither mend his pace or swim for it. Human regard is turning more and\nmore towards those who deal in living verities\u2014the men who search the\nstars, who win new powers out of the common air, who find at last the\nauthentic teachings in the old worn texts of the stones and brooks.\nThese are the true poets, romancists, tellers of wondrous tales; and\nthese will hold the crowd\u2014which is never far astray in its\nintuitions\u2014when all the singers of sick fancies and the harpers on frayed\ngolden strings have gone off in melancholy dudgeon to their own place.\n\nThe old story\u2014which has held such a long and honoured position in school\ntext-books, and in the writings of those who tell of Nature\u2019s wonders\nfrom the commanding watch-tower of the study fire\u2014the old story of the\nqueen-bee ruling her thirty or forty thousand dutiful subjects, and\nguiding them unerringly in all their marvellous exploits and enterprises,\nmust go now with the rest. For the truth, as modern observers have\nunquestionably established it, is that the queen-bee is no ruler in the\nhive, but even a more obedient subject than any. The real instigators\nand contrivers of everything that takes place within the hive are the\nworker-bees themselves. The queen has neither part nor lot in the\ndirection of the common polity; nor has she any power, mental or\nphysical, to help in the carrying out of public works. Her sole duty is\nthat of motherhood, and even in this she derives all initiative from the\nsovereign worker-bees. She is little more than an ingenious piece of\nmechanism, and carefully guarded and cherished accordingly. She has\ncertain propensities, and certain elemental passions, which she can\nalways be counted on to exercise in certain well-defined and limited\nways. But as an intelligent, originating force she counts for nothing.\nThe mind in the hive is the collective mind of the whole colony, apart\nfrom the queen and drones\u2014an hereditary, communal intellect evolved\nthrough the ages, the sum and total of all bee experience since the world\nof bees began.\n\nIf, however, modern science compels us to divest the mother-bee of all\nher regal state and quality, and thus destroy one of the prettiest\ndelusions of ancient times, it is only to take up a story of real life\nmore alluring and romantic still. In the light of new understanding the\nold facts take on a mystery and excite a wonderment greater than ever\nbefore. If we found the life of the hive an enthralling study when we\nsupposed it to originate from one winged atom endowed with acute and\ncommanding abilities, how much more fascinating must it prove when we\ncome to see that all this complex system of government is instituted and\nkept together by the harmonious working of tens of thousands of reasoning\nbeings?\n\nReasoning\u2014it is a big word, a double-edged thing that requires careful\nhandling. We have been so long accustomed to use it only in regard to\nour own magnificent mental processes that it savours almost of the\nridiculous to bring it to bear upon such a tiny et-cetera in the brute\ncreation as the honey-bee. And yet, the deeper we go in the study of the\nbee and all her works, the more difficult it becomes to find a word that\nshall more fittingly meet the case. Instinct will not do. Instinct\nimplies a dead perfection of motive, born of omniscience, working through\nunthinking, unvarying organisms to an equally perfect end. But in\nneither project nor performance can the honey-bee be said invariably to\nachieve, or even to aim at, perfection. It will be seen hereafter that\nher motives, her methods, the results she brings about, all show\nfrequent, undeniable error or deviation. She attempts to carry through a\nsound enterprise, but abandons it on finding unforeseen difficulties in\nthe way. She will persevere blindly in an obviously foolish piece of\nbusiness, and fail to see her mistake until both energy and resources are\nat an end. Sudden emergencies may find her ready with the saving stroke\nof last ingenuity, or merely plunge her into listless despair. Courage,\nindustry, economy, wise forethought, or still wiser afterthought, are all\ncommon traits in her nature. But she may develop idleness, unthrift,\nslovenliness, or even downright dishonesty, if chance or circumstance\nindicate the way.\n\nAnd what are all these but the defects or attributes of reason? If bees\nand men, each admittedly rooted in divinity, be prone to the like\nfailings and inconsequences, who shall discriminate between them,\ndividing arbitrarily natural cause and effect?\n\nWatching bees at work for the first time through the glass panels of an\nobservation hive, or in the almost equally informing modern hive with\nmovable combs, this question continually arises, and there seems only one\nanswer for it. There is something curiously human-like in their\nmovements over the crowded combs, and the old comparison of a beehive to\na city of men is never out of mind. There are the incessant hurryings to\nand fro; chance meetings of friends at odd street-corners; altercations\nwhere we can almost hear the surly complaint and tart reply; busy masons\nand tilers and warehouse-hands at work everywhere: a hundred different\nenterprises going forward in every thronging thoroughfare or narrow\nside-lane, from the great main entrance to the remotest drone-haunted\ncorner of the hive.\n\nYou will see the huge, full-bodied queen labouring over the combs from\ncell to cell, with a circle of attendants ever about her. In the highest\nstories of the hive the honey-makers are at work, pouring the\nnew-garnered sweets into the vats, or sealing over with impervious wax\nthe mature honey. Where the nurseries are established, in the central\nand warmest region of the hive, the nurse-bees are hurrying incessantly\nover the combs, looking into each cell to mark the progress of the larv\u00e6;\ngiving each its due ration of bee-milk; or, when the time arrives,\nwalling up the cell with a covering that shall insure its privacy, but\nfreely admit the air. Here and there the young bees have awakened from\ntheir transforming slumber, and are clamouring at the stoppings of their\nprenatal tombs, gnawing their way out vigorously, or thrusting forth red,\nglistening, ravenous tongues, eager to end their long fast. Where these\nraw youngsters have at last won their way into existence, they can be\nseen assiduously grooming themselves, or searching the neighbouring comb\nfor honey, while the nurse-bees are busy cleaning out the cells, just\nvacated, to make them ready for the queen when she comes by on her next\negg laying round.\n\nAnd all these operations are going forward simultaneously on an\nincredibly large scale. Certain amazing scraps of information are given\nto the wondering on-looker, which he hears, but can, at this stage in his\nprogress, seldom rightly estimate. He is told that the queen is the only\nmother-bee in the colony, large as it is; that, in the prime of her\nmaternity, she will lay as many as 3,000 eggs a day; and that she has the\npower to produce either male or female eggs, or none at all, at will. He\nis told that, except when she leads forth the swarm, she goes out of the\nhive only once in her life, and this is her wedding-trip. On this one\noccasion she has traffic with the drone somewhere incredibly high up in\nthe blue air and sunshine of the summer\u2019s day; and that immediate death\nis her suitor\u2019s invariable portion; that she returns at once to the hive,\nand thereafter for the rest of her life, which may endure for years, she\npasses her time in immaculate widowhood, yet retaining her fertility to\nthe end.\n\n [Picture: Comb-frame from modern hive, with Queen]\n\nShe is pointed out to the gaping novice as she travels her unceasing\nround of the brood-combs, and her various attributes are explained to\nhim. He is shown how much larger she is than the worker-bee; how her\nbodily structure differs in a dozen important ways; how her instincts and\nhabits resemble those of the common worker hardly in a single particular.\nFinally he is told something at which the most polite credulity may well\ndemur. Although the mother-bee is to all appearances of a totally\ndifferent race, the egg from which she was raised was identical with that\nwhich produces the little worker. Her bodily size, the change in the\nnumber and shape of her organs, her mental differences, are all due to\ntreatment and diet alone. There is no reason why she should not have\nbeen an ordinary neuter working-bee, nor why any one of the thirty or\nforty thousand little workers in a hive should not have become a great\nqueen-bee, the sole mother of an entire colony, save for the edict of the\ncommunal mind. More wonderful still, the drones, the male bees\u2014the\nbrothers, never the fathers, of their own hive, as has been so often\nstated\u2014owe the fact of their sex entirely to the will or whim of the hive\nauthorities, working through the docile agency of the queen. Until the\nmoment before the egg is laid, the question of the sex of the resulting\nbee is held in abeyance. This big lusty drone, with exuberant\nmasculinity obvious in every posture and act; his totally different\norganism; his incapacity for anything else than the fulfilment of the one\noffice required of him, for he cannot even entirely feed himself; his\nhabit of spending his life either in a comfortable lethargy of repletion\nat home, or in amorous knight-errantry abroad\u2014this drone might have been\na little plodding worker-bee, with shrunken yet elaborated body and\ncuriously developed brain, whose one idea in life is to get through the\nlargest amount of work before death claims her, and who is armed with a\nformidable poisoned sting, while the drone has none.\n\nIt is useless at this stage to tell the learner that all these vital\ndifferences\u2014miracles, indeed, in the ordinary meaning of the word\u2014are\nbrought about by the leading powers of the hive in certain simple, easily\nexplainable ways. He has lost, for the moment, all sight of and interest\nin the details, however extraordinary, in the perception that has dawned\non him of the vastness of the entire plan. Here is a community that, to\nall appearances, has solved every problem relating to the well-being and\nprogress of a crowded, highly organised society. Questions that are now\nvexing socialistic philosophers in the human world, or are looming dark\nin the immediate future\u2014problems of numerical increase in relation to\nfood-supply, the balance of the sexes, communal or individual ownership\nin property, due qualification for parenthood, the hegemony of might or\nright\u2014all seem to have been happily settled long ago in this remarkable\nbee-commonwealth. In itself a prosperous, well-conducted hive appears to\noffer a living example, a perfect object-lesson of what Socialism,\ncarried out to its last and sternest conclusions, must mean to human and\napiarian communities alike. Here is a number of individuals\u2014counting\nanything from ten thousand to fifty or sixty thousand, according to their\ncondition and the time of year\u2014living heathily and comfortably in the\nspace of a few cubic feet. The principle, all for the greatest good of\nthe greatest number, is elevated into a prime maxim, to which every one\nmust bow. The fiction of royalty is maintained in harmony with the\nperfect republican spirit. The females are supreme in everything, the\nmales in nothing. Growth of population is accelerated or retarded,\naccording to estimations of the immediate or future supply of food. The\nproportion of the sexes is varied at will. The rule, that those who\ncannot work must not live, is applied with relentless consistency. All\nthe garnered wealth of the State is held in common for the common good.\nWhen the settlement becomes too populous, and the boundaries cannot be\nextended, a large part of its inhabitants are forced to emigrate, taking\nwith them only so much of the state property as they can carry in their\nhaversacks, and relinquishing all claim to the rest. The governing\nfemales have apparently agreed among themselves that only one of their\nnumber shall exercise the privilege of motherhood; and when her fertility\ndeclines, she is deposed, and a new mother-bee, specially raised for the\npurpose, installed in her place.\n\nAll these, and a host of other facts as to bee-life, are crowded into the\nbewildered brain of the tiro until its capacity is exhausted, and he can\ntake no more. He begins to see, at length, that he is approaching a\ngreat matter too fast, and from the wrong direction. Like a scholar who,\nresolving on a new and difficult branch of study, commences at the end of\nhis treatise instead of at the beginning, he finds himself in the midst\nof terms and equations of which he knows nothing. All this desultory\npeering into hive-windows, and listening to scraps of astounding\ninformation, is nothing but opening the book of bee-life here and there\nat odd disjointed pages, getting a swift impression of certain lurid,\nkaleidoscopic details, but no grounding in the consecutive science of the\nfacts. There is nothing for it\u2014if he be resolved to know the life of the\nhoney-bee truly\u2014but to turn back to the first page of the volume, and\nsteadily work his way through to the end\u2014if end there be.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAll know the English honey-bee\u2014the Black Bee, as she is called, partly to\ndistinguish her from her foreign rivals, and partly, it would seem,\nbecause she is not black at all, but a rich brown\u2014but all do not know her\norigin. Probably she came to us from the tropics by easy stages, swarm\nout-flying swarm, until the most adventurous crossed the English Channel\nin remote ages, when it was only a narrow race of water, or even before\nGreat Britain was detached from the mainland.\n\nIt was the black bee, and not the motley-coloured Italian or other\nvarieties, who came to us thus, for the same reason, probably, that the\nCelts came\u2014because they were a hardy race, loving, and being more fitted\nfor the bracing northern atmosphere than the heat and languor of the\nsouth. Modern bee-breeders who are trying so hard to acclimatise in\nBritain the golden-girdled or silver-fringed bee-races of other lands,\nmight well ponder this fact. No keener controversy rages to-day among\nEnglish bee-masters than this one of the relative merits of native and\nforeign stocks. But assuredly Nature has not erred in this respect.\nSouth Down sheep can be reared in any county, but nowhere so fine as on\nthe Sussex Downs. The like principle holds good with the English bee.\nThe ages have evolved her from her tropic beginnings to make her what she\nis\u2014a doughty, essentially British creature, thriving against all odds of\nfickle climate, when her more tender sisters from the south are hard put\nto it for a living. She has held her own against them, and more than her\nown. In bumper seasons, such as we get all too rarely, when, in sober\ntruth, the land is flowing with honey, there is little to choose between\nthe rival honey-makers. But through good and bad, early and late, for\nsteady, dogged industry, invincible hardihood, tangible results, the\nEnglish black bee has out-distanced all competitors. Thousands of years\nhave gone to her making, and thousands more may conceivably fit the\nyellow-skirted Ligurian for British work. But labour for so remote a\nposterity were altruism meeter for angels than for men.\n\nIn her old prim\u00e6val fastnesses the honey-bee is little likely to have\ntroubled herself with hive-making, but to have hung her combs to some\nconvenient branch in the forest, much as the bees in India do to-day.\nThe habit of seeking some hollow tree or cleft in the rock grew upon her\nprobably as she advanced northward, and some nightly or seasonal shelter\nbecame more and more an imperious need. The present-day customs of wild\ncreatures give some inkling of their ancestral ways, but it is in their\noccasional aberrations from these customs that we get the truest\nindications of what their original state must have been. Lost swarms of\nbees, if they fail to pitch upon some better site, will often build in\nthe open, either suspending their waxen houses from some horizontal\nbranch, or making them in the heart of a thick bush.\n\nThe ways of the honey-bee are full of such deviations, due, perhaps, to\nthe working of old ancestral memory rousing dimly in the midst of modern\nneeds. The issue of a swarm may be nothing else than the survival of an\nold process, vital enough in its day, but, under the present civilised\nconditions of bee-life, lacking the whet of entire necessity. For, in\nall respects, the life of the bee, ancient as it is, is an evolved\ncivilisation, and not a surviving, aboriginal state. It is conceivable\nthat the foxes have their holes, and the birds their nests, much after\nthe same fashion as in the days when Adam invented love-making. But the\ntwentieth-century honey-bee is not of this kind. The communal habit\nitself may even have been a comparatively late introduction in her\nprogress. It is possible to get some idea of the path she won for\nherself through the ages by studying the ways of creatures now living,\nbut immeasurably less advanced than the bee. There are distant\nconnections of hers\u2014lonely little wood-wasps and others\u2014which never\nassociate with their kind, but get through the short summer hours in\nsolitude, and die with the waning season, leaving the perpetuation of\ntheir species to the children they never see. The common wasp is nearer\nthe honey-bee in development, but still infinitely far behind. The\nfecundated queen-wasp comes out of her winter hiding-place, fashions a\ncell or two in some hole in the ground, and deposits her first eggs, thus\nlaying the foundation of a colony which, populous enough in the season,\nmust nevertheless perish with the next winter chills.\n\nIn the prim\u00e6val tropics the honey-bees may have lived in separate\nfamilies, each with its teeming mother, its indolent, lie-abed father\u2014the\nTurveydrop of creation\u2014and its bevy of youngsters, every one going out,\nwhen grown, to establish a home for itself. The modern bee-city, with\nits complicated systems and laws, and its innumerable multitudes, may\nhave originated only when change of habitat and climate brought about the\nnecessity for a new order of things. Living in perpetual warmth, in a\nland where blossom followed blossom in unending succession, there would\nbe no need for such co-operation. The one little family, snugging close\nin its moss-roofed corner, could sustain its own temperature; and where\nthere was unceasing array of nectar-producing flowers, foresight would\nhave been folly: the winter larder would have been left to take care of\nitself.\n\nBut as the young bees, leaving their homes, and flying ever northward,\ncame first into temperate zones, and then into the fringe of Arctic\ninfluences, the conditions gradually changed. The perpetual\nsipping-garden was left behind; and a season came in each year\u2014short at\nfirst, but inevitably lengthening\u2014when there were no flowers. Hard\nnecessity must have taught the bee, then, first to gather together with\nher kind for warmth during the cold season; and then, as this got longer\nand longer, to make some food-provision for winter days that would eke\nout endurance until the spring sun again wooed the earth into\nflower-giving. Thus the first communal bee-nests must have been evolved\nfrom the universal need of the race: the first common storehouses\ninstituted: a host of unforeseen difficulties and side-issues\nencountered, and means for dealing with them contrived. The spirit of\ninvention must have been busy then with the race, and taxed to the limit,\nof her resources. For never did Pandora open celestial casket upon earth\nwith more redoubtable consequences, than when the Great Artificer set up\nthe honey-bee as an examplar of city-building to the nomadic world of\nmen.\n\nFrom the crowding together of the separate bee-families for mutual\nprotection against the elements, to a complete and permanent fusion of\nlife and interests, must have been only a step, as Nature works. But\nthen there must have been stirring times\u2014social upheavals, educative\ndisasters, a cataclysmic war of sex. Bee-life must have been shaken to\nits very foundations. When and how the woman-bee first got the upper\nhand in the direction of affairs, it is unimportant to determine. But it\nis certain that she got it, and has kept it ever since. The population\nproblem must have been the great, overwhelming one. With hundreds of\nprolific mothers in the hive, each having enough to do at home in rearing\nher own children, and a crowd of lazy, irresponsible drones who could do\nnothing but dance in the sunshine or go a-wooing, how were the daily\nneeds of the hive to be satisfied, leaving out of account the provision\nthat must be made for coming winter days? It was clearly a case of\nreform or annihilation; and it may be conceived that the woman-bees, in\ndefault of masculine initiative, took the reins into their own hands.\n\nIt is a prophetic story. First they discovered their latent powers. The\nharmless ovipositor revealed itself as a prime weapon of offence. Thus\nthe army was with the revolutionaries, and the rest was easy. A great,\nfar-reaching scheme was set afoot. Motherhood was to be a privilege of\nthe few and the fittest; work the compulsory lot of the mass. Hard times\nhad already bred a lean, unfertile gang among them, and it was discovered\nthat famine rations in the nursery meant a wholesale increase in these\nnatural spinsters of the race. Henceforth the little sex-atrophied\nworker-bee was multiplied in the hive, while the fully nurtured mothers\nwere gradually reduced to a few\u2014at last to one alone. It was a triumph\nof collective self-sacrifice for the well-being and high persistence of\nthe race.\n\nAll this may be imagined as having taken place in infinitely remote\ntimes, long before man succeeded in distinguishing himself from the apes.\nIn the honey-bee of to-day, and her life in the modern hive, we get a\nsort of quintessence of the ages; a creature developed in mind and body\nby her unique conditions, these conditions again imposing upon her unique\nsystems of life. Like Ruskin\u2019s Venetian, she must live nobly or perish.\nMuch more is required of her than the role of domestic and political\neconomist. To make the modern beehive a possibility there must be\narchitects, mathematicians, and chemists within its walls. Sanitary\nscience must have its skilled exponents, or the hive would change into a\ndeath-trap within a few hours. There must be land-surveyors ready to\nexplore the country, just before the issue of the swarms, to determine\nfor them their new location. There must be overseers, gang-forewomen,\neverywhere to superintend every work in progress throughout the hive.\nAbove all, there must be a supreme central power, a farseeing\nintelligence, to divine the imminent common need, and to set the forces\nof the State to work, in right time and order, to provide for it. If all\nthese cannot be proved to exist in a hive of bees to-day, at least the\nnecessity for them is undeniable; and as undeniable, the achieved\nresults.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\nEARLY WORK IN THE BEE-CITY\n\n\nTHE \u201cturn of the days,\u201d when the winter sun has passed its nadir of\nfeebleness and just made its earliest wan recovery in the skies, marks\nthe true beginning of the honey-bee\u2019s year. Then the first few eggs are\nlaid in the heart of the brood-nest; the drowsy cluster begins to show an\ninterest in life; the water-carriers bestir themselves, watching for a\nbright warm morning that they may sally forth to ply their trade.\n\nDangerous work it is at this season, yet most necessary. Without water\nthe rearing of the young bees is impossible on any but the smallest\nscale. Water is needed at every stage of their development, and, lacking\nit, the progress of the colony must be fatally checked. Even the mature\nbees will starve and die in the midst of plenty, if their honey-stores\nare candied, and no water is available to dissolve the inassimilable\nsweets. The hive that shows honey crystals thrown down on the floor, and\nlittering the entrance, is sure to be in desperate case. The bees are\ntearing open every store-cell, casting away the solidified honey as\nrefuse, to get at the moister portion below. If the cold spell does not\nbreak, or the bee-master is unready with his artificial supplies, the\ncolony must perish. So the water-bearers watch for the sunshine, and its\nfirst warm glance brings them out to rifle the nearest dewdrops, or track\ndown by its bubbling music the hidden woodland stream. Many die at this\nwork in the early months of the year, chilled by their load on the\nhomeward journey, or snapped up by hungry birds. But at every cost the\nfuture life of the colony must be assured, though, of all the\nhive-people, none but the queen-mother will be alive to see it in its\nsummer fulness.\n\nWe are accustomed to think of a hive of bees as a permanent institution,\nDeath playing his old, unceasing, busy part, but young Life more than\noutplaying him, just as the way is in a city-hive of men. The analogy\nholds good, but in bee-life the changes are infinitely more rapid. The\nlife of the worker-bee extends, at most, to six months or so; and in the\nbusy season she may die, worn out by labour, in as many weeks. The\nreapers of last year\u2019s honey-harvest were dead by the autumn. The\nlate-born bees, that went into winter quarters with polished thorax and\nragged wings, survived only long enough to nurture their immediate\nsuccessors; and these, again, will live but to bring to maturity the\nyoung spring-broods. Not a bee among them will ever again go\nhoney-gathering. Except for the long-lived queen-mother, and the old\nhive and its furniture, each colony with every year becomes a totally new\nthing.\n\nHibernation, in the true sense of the word, has no part in bee-life. The\nqueen-wasp and countless other creatures hibernate, passing the cold\nmonths in a torpor of sleep until the enduring warmth of another year\nlures them back to active existence. But the honey-bees have a better\nway: they gather together in a dense, all but motionless cluster in the\nheart of the hive, with their precious queen in their midst and their\nfood-stores above them. At this time honey is their only necessary food,\nand very little of this suffices to keep up the needful temperature of\nthe colony. When they are out and about at their work, or busy within\nthe hive, the nitrogenous pollen must be added to their daily ration of\nnectar to build up wasted tissues; but now honey, the nectar\nconcentrated, the heat-producer, is all they want. The bees of the\ncluster nearest to the combs broach the full cells beneath them, and the\nhoney is passed through the crowd, each bee getting its scanty dole.\n\n [Picture: Winter in the Bee-Garden]\n\nEconomy is now reduced to a fine art. None knows when a fresh supply may\nbe available, although no chance will be lost to replenish the larder at\nthe first sign of returning warmth. But now the barest minimum of food\nis taken, and as the nearest cells become emptied of their contents, the\ncluster moves a step upward. Thus there is a system of slow browsing\nover the combs, until the dense flock of bees has reached the highest\nlimit of the hive, when new grazing-ground must be taken. But the\nmovement of the cluster is exceedingly slow, perhaps the slowest thing in\nthe animate world. All recognise that existence depends on the stores\nbeing eked out to their uttermost. It is a scientific damping-down of\nthe fires of life\u2014a carefully thought-out and perfected plan for\npreserving the greatest possible number of worker-bees alive on the\nsmallest practicable amount of food, so that the largest possible army of\nnurse-bees and foragers may be at hand in the springtime to raise the\nyoung bees that are to represent the future colony.\n\nBut there is no hibernation. It is doubtful even if bees ever sleep,\neither in their season of greatest activity or in the coldest depths of\nwinter. At all times a slight rap on the hive will awaken an immediate\ntimorous outcry within. Sturdy knocking will soon bring the guard-bees\nto the entrance to find out the cause of the disturbance, and many bees\nlose their lives from this vigilant habit alone. On frosty days the tits\nmay often be seen perched on the entrance-board of a hive, beating out a\nnoisy tattoo, and snapping up every bee that emerges; and many other\nsmall birds have discovered the same never-failing source of a meal.\n\nThe fact that, with a healthy stock of bees, the interior of a hive\nalways preserves its clean condition, is usually a great puzzle to the\nnovice. In the summer, when the bees are passing continually in and out,\nthis is not so vast a matter for wonder. But in winter-time, when the\ncolony is confined to the hive often for weeks together, it is remarkable\nthat neither the combs nor floor of the hive are ever soiled by excreta.\nThis is a difficulty that the sanitary department in the hive has\nsuccessfully coped with long ago. It must have been one of the earliest\nproblems that presented itself when the honey-bee first evolved the\ncommunal habit. The Ancients believed that all the excreta of the hive\nwere deposited by the bees in certain privy-cells, and thence removed at\nintervals by the scavenging authorities. There is nothing in this\nnotion, absurd as it is, outside the scope of bee-ingenuity; on the\ncontrary, such a crude device would be little likely to commend itself to\nthe hive-people, as it would be ridiculously inadequate to the case. How\ngreat must be the problem of the preservation of cleanliness in a hive,\ncan only be understood when the whole conditions are considered together,\nand that from a human standpoint. Putting the figures unwarrantably low,\nwhat measure of success could the greatest genius that ever lived among\nsanitary scientists ever hope to achieve, if he were given the task of\nkeeping in cleanly condition, perfect ventilation, and even temperature,\na building where 10,000 individuals were crowded together storey above\nstorey\u2014a building hermetically sealed throughout except for one small\nopening at the lowest level, which must serve for all purposes of\nentrance and exit to its denizens, as well as sole conduit for the\nremoval of the foul air and introduction of the pure? The task would be\ngigantic enough in the summer-time, when a large proportion of the\ninhabitants were away at work during a greater part of the day; but in\nwinter, when all were continuously at home for weeks together, what\nconceivable device, or combination of devices, could prevent the building\nsoon developing into first a quagmire and then a charnel-house, to which\nthe Black Hole of Calcutta would be a model sanitary retreat?\n\nYet the difference between such a building and a beehive is only one of\ndegree. The same conditions are involved, and the same evils must be\ncombated. Relatively, the problem is the same in each. In the case of\nthe beehive, the necessity for this close system of life has been very\ngradually imposed on its inhabitants; and age-long custom, working on the\nindividual, has at length produced a race marvellously adapted to its\nspecial needs. Probably the habit of retention of f\u00e6ces while in the\nhive was at first a voluntary one. This, carried on from generation to\ngeneration, would react on the physical organism until use became second\nnature, and finally the present condition was reached. It is a fact that\nthe bee is now incapable of voiding its excreta within the hive, or when\nat rest. The muscles involved can come into action only during, or\nimmediately after, vigorous flight. In the winter, when long spells of\ncold occur, not a bee leaves the hive perhaps for weeks together; but an\nhour\u2019s warm sunshine will infallibly bring the whole company out in a\nlittle eddying crowd about the hive, and then the necessary action of\nnature can readily be seen. These cleansing flights occur on all\npracticable occasions, and fulfil a double purpose; for when the cluster\nforms again, it will be between combs where the stores are unexploited,\nand the old, steady, upward feeding-march begins again in a new place.\nIn extraordinary seasons, when the cold weather is much prolonged, the\npopulation of a hive may die of starvation within reach of plenty, no\nopportunity for these flights having presented itself, and the cluster\ntherefore not having left its original station. And here the bee is\nplainly the victim of her own advanced acumen. Instinct would never have\nled her into such a foolish plight; but reason, being liable to err, errs\nhere egregiously.\n\nThe comparison of a modern beehive with a building similar in\nconstruction, and as densely crowded with human beings, brings the whole\nproblem to a sharp definition. In such a building, unless a\nthrough-current of air could be established, the preservation of life\nmust soon become impossible. Yet the bees have triumphantly overcome all\ndifficulties. Whether in winter or summer, the air within the hive is\nalmost as pure as that in the open, while the temperature can be\nregulated at will. For the ordinary purposes of the hive\u2014honey-brewing,\nand the hatching of the young brood\u2014it is kept uniformly at 80\u00b0 to 85\u00b0.\nWhen the wax-makers are at work, it rises suddenly to 95\u00b0 or so, while at\nthe time of the swarming-fever it is often allowed to go even higher. In\nthe hottest days of summer, however, unless the emigration-furore\npossesses the colony, the interior of a well-made hive seldom shows a\ntemperature of more than 80\u00b0. And all this is brought about in a very\nsimple fashion.\n\nThe sanitary expert, of merely human stock, could attack the problem in\nonly one way. He must have a through-current of air, impelled either\nmechanically or automatically; and he must have heating-apparatus acting\nwithin the building itself, or warming the incoming draught of air. But\nthe bees work on totally different principles. They will have nothing to\ndo with the through-current system of ventilation. If the ingenious\nbee-master pierce air-holes in the walls of a hive, the bees will spend\nthe night in carefully stopping them up again. In the old bee-garden we\nsaw the fanning-army drawing out the impure air. These bees had their\nheads pointing towards the entrance; but, inside the hive, there was\nanother army of fanners, facing the opposite way, and thus helping to\ndrive the same sidelong current. Throughout nearly the whole interior of\nthe hive on hot days fanning-bees can be seen, all helping to keep up\nthis movement. The result is that the pure air, being sucked in at one\nside of the entrance, flows round the hive and travels out at the other\nside, much as a rope goes over a pulley-block. The swiftest current of\nair keeps to the walls and roof of the hive, the air in the centre being\nchanged more slowly. Thus the honeycombs, which are always in the upper\nstories, lie in the full stream, and the moisture, which the maturing\nhoney is continually giving off, is carried rapidly away; while the\nbrood-combs, lying in the lower, central part, are ventilated more\nslowly, the air being thoroughly warmed before it reaches them. The\nlarger the fanning-army is, the more swiftly flows the air, and the\nfaster the heat of the hive is carried off. In this way the bees can\nregulate the hive-temperature to the requirements of the moment, putting\nmore numerous gangs to work in the hottest season, or stopping the\nfanners altogether in mid-winter, when the natural, buoyant\nheat-exhalation from the cluster is sufficient to keep up the gentle\ncirculation which then is alone needed.\n\nSometimes, when the colony is unusually large, the fanning-party will be\ndivided into two detachments, one at each side of the entrance, leaving\nthe centre for the inflow of air. In this case a double-loop system of\nventilation appears to be formed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\nTHE GENESIS OF THE QUEEN\n\n\nIT has been said that the ways of the honey-bee are nearly all subject to\nvariation\u2014that in bee-life there are few hard-and-fast, undeviating laws.\nThe rule, of one queen-mother only to each hive, appears to be more\nabsolute than any other, yet it is not without its exceptions. Well\nauthenticated instances are on record where two queens have existed\namicably in the same hive, each laying her daily quota of eggs unmolested\nby the other, and, apparently, with the full approval of the\nhive-authorities.\n\nIt is now also certain that a skilful bee-master can accustom his bees to\nthe presence of more than one queen. Recent experiments in America on\nthis head, although convincing enough as far as they go, need the test of\ntime before their practical value to apiculture can be rightly estimated.\nTo multiply its domestic deities may prove anything but a blessing to the\nharmony and welfare of a hive. But the fact has been well established\nthat the old rule, of one queen at a time, may be upset\u2014whether\npermanently, and for the ultimate advantage of honey-making, time alone\ncan tell.\n\n [Picture: Drone-brood and worker-broods]\n\nA single queen, when young and vigorous and of good blood, is able to\nkeep an entire hive filled with brood throughout the short\nhoney-gathering season. The brood-nest of a modern frame-bar hive has a\ncomb-surface of over 2,000 square inches, giving about 50,000 cells\navailable for the breeding of young worker-bees. This represents, at\ntimes of greatest prosperity, an enormous floating population; but if\nseveral queens can be permanently established in one hive, and the hives\nenlarged to permit each her fullest scope, the figures will soon begin to\nstretch out into infinity. Two facts are well known to experienced\nbee-keepers\u2014that a large stock gathers more honey than two small stocks\ncontaining between them the same number of individuals; and that, when\nthe honey-crop is in full yield, there are seldom enough bees to harvest\nit. The whole art of latter-day bee-keeping consists in bringing up the\nnumerical strength of each colony to its fullest in time for the great\nmain nectar-flow. Yet, in a good district and in a good season, when\nhuge areas of clover or sainfoin come into full blossom at the same time,\nand the nectar must be gathered or lost within the space of a fortnight\nor so, the most populous apiary is seldom equal to the task. Probably,\nin exceptional seasons, half the English honey-crop is lost for want of\nbees to gather it. If, therefore, the new system of plurality of queens\nboth justifies and establishes itself, the near future may see a\nrevolution in all ideas relating to beemanship. All that can be said for\ncertain at present is that as many as five queens have been induced to\noccupy the same hive in peace and quiet together; but whether this\nportentous state of affairs can remain a lasting one is still to be\nproved.\n\nA curious and, to the expert, a startling outcome of these efforts to\nbreak down an old and almost universal custom in bee-life, is that the\nsuccessful establishment of several mother-bees in a single hive appears\nto lessen the swarming impulse. Hives so treated do not send out a swarm\nso far as is known. One of the most disappointing experiences in\nbee-craft is to see prosperous stocks breaking themselves up into several\nhopelessly weak detachments just before the great honey-flow, when\nstrength of numbers is the one vital thing; and if plurality of queens\nwill prevent this vexatious evil, the old time-honoured custom is sure to\ngo.\n\nThe student of bee-life, watching the year\u2019s work in the hive from its\nearliest beginnings, and marking its steady, cautious development, will\nreadily see how the ancient idea of the mother-bee\u2019s absolute monarchy\ngained its vogue. The deception of appearances is all but complete.\nRight in the heart of the winter-cluster he sees the queen bestirring\nherself to lay the first eggs, and the bees around her slowly awakening\nto the duty before them. With the passing of the weeks, he sees the\nbrood-area steadily enlarging; the hitherto close-packed throng of\nworkers gradually extending itself over a larger space of comb; the\nwater-fetchers increasingly busy; the pollen-gathering bees already at\nwork in the crocus-borders of the garden, where the year\u2019s first gold and\nwhite and purple is gaily flaunting in the sun. He notes that the\nprogress of the colony within the warm hive does not go by the calendar,\nbut checks with each return of cold, and forges ahead only when the\nspring seems to be coming in right good earnest. He sees, even now, when\nFebruary is waning and the hazel-catkins fill the bare woodland with a\nshimmer of emerald, that the colony still husbands its stores, eking them\nout with a long-sighted parsimony that shall be more than justified when\nthe inevitable cold break comes in the flowery midst of the English May.\nIt is impossible to overlook the evidence of a wise, directing mind\nthrough it all; and where should this be seated but in the brain of the\nsingle large bee, courted and fed and groomed unceasingly by the\nattendant host around her\u2014she who is the teeming mother of past tens of\nthousands, and who carries in her body the seed of all the generations to\ncome?\n\nYet the truth is that the queen-bee is the very reverse of a monarch,\nboth by nature and inclination. She possesses only the merest rudiment\nof intelligence. She has a magnificent body, great docility, certain\nalmost unrestrainable impulse and passions, a yielding, womanish love of\nthe yoke; but she is incapable of action other than that arising from her\nbodily promptings. Her brain is much smaller than that of the worker.\nIn a dozen different ways she is inferior to the common worker-bees, who\nrule her absolutely, mapping out her entire daily life and using her for\nthe good of the colony, just as a delicate, costly piece of mechanism is\nused by human craftsmen to produce some necessary article of trade.\n\nIn a word, the queen is the sole surviving representative of the\naboriginal female honey-bee. The aborted females, the workers, are\nalmost as much a product of civilisation as the human race itself.\n\nEvery step of the way now, in a study of the life of the bee, is hedged\nabout with wonders. It is seen that the common worker-bee is raised in a\ncell allowing her only the barest minimum of space for development, while\nthe queen has an apartment twice as long as she can possibly need. The\nworker-cells are so designed that as many a possible may be contained in\na given area, and their construction involve the least possible amount of\nmaterial. Therefore these cells are made in the form of a hexagon, this\nbeing the only shape approaching the cylindrical\u2014the ideal form\u2014of which\na number will fit together over a plane surface without leaving useless\nspaces in between. Moreover, the cells needing to be closed at the\nbottom, half the material required for this purpose is saved by the\ndevice of placing the sheets of combined hexagons back to back, so that\none base will serve for two cells. But it is not only in the\nconstruction of the cradles of the worker-bees that rigid economy is\npractised. From the moment that the egg hatches until the young grub\nchanges into the chrysalis state, it is given only the smallest quantity\nof food that will support life and allow necessary development.\n\nIn the case of the young queen-larva, however, a very different policy is\ninstituted from the beginning. Not only is she given nursery-quarters\nallowing every facility for growth, but she is loaded with a specially\nrich kind of food night and day, until she actually swims in it. The\nnurse-bees are constantly pouring this glistening white substance into\nthe cell for the whole five days of her larval existence, and the effect\nof this generous diet is obvious from the first in her more rapid growth,\nas compared with the worker-bee. A further advantage still is that the\nyoung queen has perfectly free access to the air at all stages of her\ndevelopment. The worker-cell is but sparsely ventilated, and that only\nthrough the narrow top, all its six sides and base being absolutely\nimpervious. But the cradle-cell of the queen is not only made of a\nporous material throughout, but it is commonly placed at the edge of the\ncomb, where it stand out in the full current of ventilation, the air\npercolating the whole substance of its walls in addition to entering\nfreely at the large cell-mouth. Thus the main cause of the extraordinary\ndifference in the development of the queen-bee and the worker is that of\ntreatment; the one being given unlimited rich food and oxygen and room to\ngrow in, the other receiving only meagre workhouse diet, restricted\nquarters, and little air to breathe.\n\nYet, making every allowance for the stimulating or retarding effect of\nthese agencies on the young female grub, we are still hardly any nearer\nto solution of the mystery. We are compelled to believe that the egg\nwhich produces the worker is identical in its nature with that from which\nis evolved the queen-bee, because a simple experiment will at once dispel\nall doubt on the matter. If the egg deposited in the queen-cell be\nremoved and an egg taken from any one of the thousand of worker-cells in\na hive be put in its place, the worker-egg will always produce a fully\ndeveloped and accoutred queen-bee. On the other hand, if an egg be taken\nfrom a queen-cell and placed in a worker-cell, it will as infallibly\nhatch out into a common undersized worker. It would be sufficient tax on\nthe credibility if the differences of queen and worker were only those of\ndegree. If the queen were nothing but a large-sized worker-bee, in whom\ncertain organs\u2014which were atrophied in the worker\u2014had received their full\ndevelopment, it would be a fact within comprehension; but the queen\ndiffers from the worker not only in size and the capability of her\norganism, but also on several important points of structure. And how can\nmere food and air and circumstance produce structural change? The worker\nhas many bodily appliances, special members ingeniously adapted to her\ndaily tasks, of which the queen is wholly destitute; while the physical\norganism of the queen varies from that of the worker in several important\ndegrees.\n\nSome of these must be enumerated. The abdomen of the worker is\ncomparatively short and rounded: that of the queen is larger and longer,\nand comes to a fairly sharp point. The jaws of the queen are notched on\ntheir inner cutting edge: the worker\u2019s jaws are smooth like the edge of a\nknife. The tongue of the worker has a spatula at its extremity, and is\nfurnished with sensitive hairs: the tongue of the queen is shorter, the\nspatula is smaller, while the hairs show greater length. The worker-bee\nhas a complicated system of wax-secreting discs under the horny plates of\nher abdomen: in the queen these are absent, nor can the most elementary\ntrace of them be discovered. In their nerve-systems the two show\ndifference, the queen possessing only four abdominal ganglia, while the\nworker has five. The queen\u2019s sting is curved, and longer than the\nworker\u2019s: the sting of the worker-bee is perfectly straight. On their\nhind-legs the workers have a curious contrivance which bee-keepers have\nnamed the pollen-basket. It is a hollowing of the thigh, the cavity\nbeing surrounded with stiff hairs; and within this the pollen is packed\nand carried home to the hive. In the queen both the cavity and the hairs\nare absent. Her colour also is generally different from that of the\nworker-bee, her legs, in particular, being a much redder brown.\n\nHere is a problem for our great biologists\u2014a problem, however, at which\nthe plain, every-day man may well flinch. For we seem to have come face\nto face with new principles of organic life, facts incompatible with the\naccepted ideas of the inevitable relation between cause and effect. The\nirresistible tendency at this stage is to hark back; to repeat the\nexperiment of the transposed eggs, and see whether no vital, initial\ncircumstance has been overlooked. But the result is always the same.\nNor can the most careful microscopical dissection of the eggs themselves\nreveal any differences. In this mystery of the structural variance\nbetween queen and worker, it would seem that we are forced to accept one\nof three alternatives. Either the egg contains two distinct germs of\nlife, one developing only under the stress of hard times, the other only\nto the call of luxury. Or we must go back to medi\u00e6val notions, and\nbelieve that the worker-bees give or withhold some vital principle of\ntheir own during nurturing operations. Or we must give up the problem,\nand decide that creation works on lines very different from those on\nwhich we have hitherto grounded our faith.\n\nThe difficulty is further complicated by the fact that this change of\nnature does not take place until relatively late in the life of the bee.\nThe egg is three days in hatching. But the young larva is at least three\nmore days old before nature has made the irrevocable step along either of\nthe divergent ways. For the experiment of transposition can be made with\nexactly the same result if undertaken with female bee-larv\u00e6 not more than\nthree days old, instead of the unhatched eggs. Indeed, this is an\noperation that the nurse-bees themselves perform, on occasion. If a hive\nloses its queen, and it happens that all the eggs in the worker-cells are\nhatched out, the bees will breed another queen from any one of the\nworker-larva available. This is generally successful when the young grub\nhas not passed the three days\u2019 limit. But, even when all the larv\u00e6 of\nthe hive are older than this, the bees will still attempt the task,\nknowing well that, without a queen, the colony must perish. In this\ncase, however, the resulting queen will be defective in various ways.\nProbably she will never be capable of fertilisation, and therefore the\nbreed of worker-bees will be cut off at its source. Unless the\nbee-master supplies the colony with a new queen, properly fecundated, the\nhive will gradually fill up with drones, the old worker-bees will die\noff, and the stock must ultimately become extinct.\n\nWhen once the study of the inner life of the honey-bee has been\nundertaken, the watcher will soon realise that he has embarked on a\nstranger voyage than he ever contemplated, even in his most daring\nmoments. In the old bee-garden there was a serenity, a quiet enduring\nbliss of ignorance, that chimed in well with his slothful, holiday mood.\nThe sunshine, the flowers, the song of the wind in the tree-tops, and the\ndrowsy song of the hives; the voice of the old white-headed cottager\nweaving in his listener\u2019s ear the old, comfortable arabesque of error;\nthe sudden, jubilant uproar of a swarm, filling the blue sky with music\nand the flash of unnumbered wings; the night-quiet, with its deep\nunderground bee-murmur, its dim half-moon peering over the hill-top, the\nshadowy bent figure of the old beeman listening at hive-doors for the\nbattle-cry of rival queens, that should mean trouble on the morrow\u2014it all\ncomes back to the watcher now as a haven he has left inconsiderately, for\na voyage over unknown, stormy seas. For now, with the inner life of the\nhive going on unmasked before his very eyes, wonder succeeds wonder\nalmost without a break; and each new fact that reveals itself is more\nperturbing, because more destructive of old, hallowed convention, than\nany that has gone before.\n\nThe hive that has lost its mother-bee, and failed to provide her with a\nfully developed, fertile successor, is seen to be rapidly declining in\nits worker-population, while the horde of drones is increasing at a\ngreater rate than ever. But where do these drones come from, if the very\nfount of bee-life has been dried up at its source by the loss of a\nfertilised queen? The question brings the student to what is perhaps the\nmost remarkable fact in the whole great book of natural history.\n\nWe are not concerned, for the moment, with theological matters; nor will\nthe thread of the story of the honey-bee be laid down, however briefly,\nfor an excursion into the pulpit. Yet here is something that may well\ngive wherewithal for thought. For nearly two thousand years the Doctrine\nof the Virgin Birth has been the centre of a bitter human controversy.\nIts liegemen uphold it as a main article of faith, eternally exalted from\nthe odious need of proof; its temperate opposers sadly and quietly set it\naside as a natural impossibility. On one side the charge is want of\nfaith; on the other of blind credulity. And yet no one seems to have\nthought of looking into paths of creation other than human, to see if no\nparallel exists that may help both sides, and send the swords to sheath\nbefore a common mystery. The honey-bee is small among the fowls, but\nhere she looms large in the world, a portentous symbol. It is a fact,\nnow incontestably proved, that the virgin queen-bee is capable of\nreproducing her kind, yet only the male of the species. If she is born\nlate in the year, when no drones exist, and her fertilisation is\ntherefore impossible, or if some imperfection of wing prevents her going\nout for her mating-flight, she will still set busily to work at her one\nfunction of egg-laying; and these eggs will all hatch out into male bees.\nThe same thing occurs in the case of the queenless hive, which, having\nneither worker-egg nor worker-grub, whose age is under the three days\u2019\nlimit, yet tries to raise a new queen from a larva perhaps four or even\nfive days old. The queen thus created is queen only in name. She may\nhave her ovaries completely developed, but otherwise she will be\ncongenitally destitute. She will have neither the will nor power to\nreceive the drone; and the eggs that she lays so industriously only add\nto the crowd of useless males that will soon be the sole representatives\nof the doomed household.\n\n [Picture: Queen-bee in breeding season]\n\nFollowing the progress of a bee-colony through the mounting days of\nspring, we see, with every week that passes, a larger area of comb\noccupied by the young worker-brood; while about the middle of April the\nqueen pays her first visit to the drone-combs, laying a single egg in\neach cell, as with the rest. It is commonly supposed that the queen is\nalways surrounded by an adulatory retinue, each attendant bee keeping her\nhead respectfully towards her sovereign, and backing before her as she\nprogresses over the combs. Something of this sort is constantly seen\nduring breeding-time, but at other seasons the queen ordinarily receives\nlittle attention, passing to and fro in the hive with no more ceremony\nthan is bestowed on any other of the bees. The medi\u00e6val writers were\naware that the queen had these attendants, and believed them always to be\ntwelve in number, representing the twelve Apostles. A little\nobservation, however, will soon make it clear that the bees which\nsurround the queen on her egg-laying journeys are neither devotees nor\ncourtiers. They are actually her guides, her keepers. The queen\u2019s\nmovements are all prompted by the incessant strokings and pushings and\ngentle touches of the antenn\u00e6 that she receives from these. Thus they\nallow her free passage over the combs, but stop her at each vacant cell,\ngathering close about her, evidently with the most absorbing anxiety and\ninterest in the operation. First, she peers into the cell, examining it\ncarefully. Then she rears; the bees give way before her; she takes a\nstep or two onward until the end of her body is over the cell. And then\nshe thrusts her abdomen deep into it, pauses a moment, mounts again upon\nthe comb, and the attendant bees at once resume charge of her, and\nman\u0153uvre her towards the next empty cell. This process never seems\nhurried, and yet in the height of the breeding season it must go on at an\nextraordinary pace. It is well attested that a good queen will thus\nfurnish as many as two thousand to three thousand cells in a day, which\ngives an average of two eggs a minute, even supposing her to keep at the\nwork without pause for the whole twenty-four hours.\n\nThe cells designed to contain the worker-brood measure one-fifth of an\ninch across the mouth; drone cells are larger, having a diameter of a\nquarter-inch, as well as greater depth. The queen may pass from one\nspecies of comb to the other, but she seldom makes a mistake. The egg\ndeposited in the worker-cell hatches out a female; that which is laid in\nthe larger cell becomes a drone, or male bee. Obviously the deposition\nof the different kinds of eggs is well under the control of the queen.\nIt will be also seen that not only does the mother bee lay either male or\nfemale eggs at will, but their number also is subject to her\ndiscrimination. From the time when she begins ovipositing, until she\nreaches her period of greatest activity in early summer, the increase of\nthe colony is not regular, but goes by fits and starts according to the\nweather, or the amount of incoming food. If the new honey is steadily\nmounting up in the storehouse, and pollen is plentiful, the work of\nbrood-raising will go freely ahead; but if unseasonable cold stops the\nwork of the foragers, this will immediately affect the output of the\nqueen, and under exceptionally adverse conditions egg-laying may be\nentirely arrested. This may also take place in the height of the season,\nand in full favour of sunshine and plenty, if the hive is a small one,\nand the limit of its capacity has been reached. The combs will then be\nfull of either honey or brood, and the queen must wait until laying space\ncan be cleared for her. That she is able to do this\u2014that her powers can\nbe augmented or restrained, according to the needs of the colony, and\nthat the proportion of the sexes in the hive can be varied at will to\nsuit like contingencies\u2014can only be understood when the details of her\nlife-history have been passed under review.\n\nIn the normal, prosperous colony, which we are now studying, the queen\nwill be in her prime, and under natural conditions will remain at the\nhead of affairs until she goes out with the first swarm in May or June.\nA queen-bee is at the zenith of her fecundity in the second year of her\nlife. After that, her egg-laying powers steadily decline, although she\nmay live to be four, or even five, years old. But the authorities in a\nhive rarely allow a mother-bee to retain her position after she has shown\nsigns of waning energy. Preparations are at once set on foot for the\nraising of another queen.\n\nA very old queen will have lost her power to lay worker-eggs, and will\nhave become nothing but a drone-breeder. But the bees are seldom caught\nnapping in this way. Long before this happens the building of the royal\ncells will have commenced in the hive. A queen-cell has been likened, by\nvarious writers, to an acorn, and when half completed it bears a very\nclose resemblance, both in size and shape, to an inverted acorn-cup.\nThis is commonly hung mouth downwards at the side or base of one of the\ncentral brood-combs, but it may be placed right in the middle of the\ncomb, in which case the cells around it are cut away to give it air and\nspace. Whether the old queen herself deposits the egg in the royal\ncell\u2014thus unwittingly supplying the means for her own future\ndethronement\u2014or whether the worker-bees transfer to it an egg or grub\nfrom a common cell, is not yet finally ascertained. As, however, the\nmere sight of a royal cell usually excites the queen to fury, the chances\nare that she is never allowed to approach it at any time, and the egg\nwould then be placed there by the worker-bees. But, in the great\nmajority of cases, it is probable that new queens are raised by enlarging\nan already existing worker-cell, in which an egg has been previously\ndeposited. As far as is known, this is always the case when a young grub\nis used for the purpose instead of an egg. It is possible, also, that\nthe queen is physically incapable of laying in a royal cell an egg that\nwill produce a female bee; but this curious point will be touched upon at\na later stage.\n\n [Picture: A Queen-cell]\n\nThe old trite saying among beemen, that bees never do anything\ninvariably, receives constant illustration in any near study of the ways\nof the honey-bee. It has been seen that a colony deprived of its queen,\nand having no worker-egg or grub less than three days old wherewith to\nmake good its deficiency, is commonly doomed to early extinction. But,\non rare occasions, colonies supposed to be in this plight will make an\nunexpected and inexplicable recovery. After a period of the doldrums,\nextending for three weeks or more, a sudden renewed activity and\nexhilaration is observable in the hive. The pollen-bearers, who have\nbeen hitherto almost idle, resume their busy work; and, on the hive being\nopened, all the evidences of the presence of a fertile, laying\nqueen-mother are again to be seen. In many instances in which a new\nlease of life has thus been vouchsafed to a colony under what seems an\ninexorable ban, no doubt appearances have been deceptive. The bees may\nhave discovered in their midst a worker-larva not yet too far advanced\nfor promotion to queenship, and thus have achieved their salvation at the\neleventh hour. But, in at least one case, the testimony against the\npossibility of this seems complete. A nucleus stock, containing only\nthree or four small combs and only about five hundred bees, was deprived\nof its queen. Ten days later every queen-cell that had been formed in\nthe interval was destroyed, leaving in the hive not a single egg or bee\nin the larval state. Nevertheless, on the hive being opened after a\nfurther period of eighteen days, one new queen-cell containing an egg was\ndiscovered. And this egg duly hatched out into a fine, well-developed\nqueen-bee. Assuming the facts to be true, and they seem to be\nincontrovertible, there is only one inference to be drawn from this: some\nenterprising bee of the colony must have gone to another hive and either\nbegged, borrowed, or stolen a worker-egg. Apiarian scientists very\nrightly hesitate to ascribe to the honey-bee surpassing ingenuity of this\nkind on the testimony of a single case, however well authenticated. But\nother instances are on record nearly as indubitable, and as it is an\nunquestioned fact that worker-bees will carry eggs about from comb to\ncomb within the space of their own hive, it does not seem wholly\nincredible that they may visit other hives in the immediate\nneighbourhood, especially when impelled to extra resourcefulness by so\nvital a need. The whole question is interesting in more ways than one,\nas it seems to bear very trenchantly on the problem of \u201cReason versus\nInstinct,\u201d now busy in the thoughts of most modern naturalists.\n\nIn whatever way the egg for the queen-cell may be furnished by the stock\nintending to raise a new mother-bee, the first sign of life is always the\nsame\u2014a tiny, white, elongated speck, glued on end to the base, or what\nmust rather be called the roof, of the inverted cell-cup. In this state\nit remains about three days, when the larva hatches out, and at once the\nspecial treatment accorded to the young queen begins. She is loaded with\nrich provender from the first moment of her existence, living literally\nup to the eyes in the white, shining, jelly-like substance that the\nnurse-bees are continually regurgitating and pouring into the cells.\nThis superfeeding process is continued for about five days, when the\nlarva has reached its full growth and the cell its greatest dimensions.\nThe larva then stops feeding to spin itself a silken shroud before\nchanging into the pupa state, and the bees seal up the door of the cell.\nIn its completed state the cell loses its resemblance to an acorn, and is\nrather to be likened to a fir-cone. In the case of the common workers\nand drones, the cells are made of pure wax, only the capping being of\nmingled wax and pollen; but the queen cell is constructed throughout of\nthis porous material.\n\nThe fully grown queen-bee is ready, and more than anxious to leave her\ncradle-cell in about fifteen or sixteen days after the laying of the egg.\nThe bees, however, generally give her a first lesson in obedience even at\nthis early point in her career. It is a critical time in the history of\nthe hive, and much thought and care have been bestowed on the complicated\nbusiness in hand. In the first place, it would never have done to allow\nthe whole future welfare of the colony to depend on a single life alone.\nTherefore not one queen has been raised, but several. As many as five or\nsix queens may be ready to hatch out in different parts of the\nbrood-nest, and none of them will be permitted to break from her cell\nuntil the appointed time arrives. For each the cradle now becomes a\nprison. A small hole is bored in the cell-wall, through which the\nimpatient captive is fed, pending the day when she is to be allowed her\nliberty; and close guard and watch is kept over each cell to save it from\nthe violence of the old queen, who is becoming hourly more restless and\nsuspicious.\n\nThe complete subjection of the mother-bee to the ruling worker-class in\nthe hive receives here a striking confirmation. She is a true exemplar\nof a prevailing kind of femininity\u2014comely of person, untutored in mind,\nan inveterate stay-at-home, a prolific mother; and now there awakens in\nher the sounding chord of jealousy. Left free to act on her own\nimpulses, she would soon bring about a speedy end to all the careful,\nlong-sighted preparations within the hive. She would tear open each\nroyal cell, and with one thrust of the curved, cruel scimitar that\nqueen-bees use only on their equals in rank, its occupant would be\nruthlessly despatched, and her own supremacy reinstated. But an\nimpassable barrier stops the way\u2014the collective will of the hive. The\nviolent delight of killing has once been hers; she will never know it\nagain. Now her own fate is in the balance. It may be death, or a new\nlife in a new home: all depends on the deliberate decree of those who\nhave made her, and who now use or discard her, for their own purposes.\nIf it be late spring, and the condition of the stock warrant it, this\ngoverning spirit may decide for colonisation, and the old queen may be\ndisposed of by sending her off with a swarm. But other counsels may\nprevail. The times may be unripe, or the weather inopportune. And then\nFate, in the shape of a merciless application of principles, will descend\nupon her, and her own wise children will ruthlessly put her to death.\n\nThis State-execution of the queen, at the first sign of waning fertility,\nis a peculiarly pathetic as well as a tragic phase of bee-life. The\nstern, soured amazons of the hive must have their systems and conventions\nin everything they undertake; and they cannot even bring about the\nsupersession of the old queen without due circumstance and ceremonial.\nGiven that it would be against the best interests of the common weal that\nshe should retain her life after the loss of her queenhood, one swift\nstroke would immediately determine the matter, and the law\u2014that there\nshall be no useless members in the bee-republic\u2014would have its due\nfulfilment. But old tradition rules that the queen shall suffer no\nviolence from the weapons of the common herd. She is to die, but her\ndeath must be brought about in another way. And so the fawning\nexecutioners gather round her, locking her in an embrace that tightens\nwith every moment, until the breath is literally hugged out of her body.\nAll her life has been spent in the midst of caresses, and now she is to\ndie of them, close held to the last in that silent, terrible grip.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\nTHE BRIDE-WIDOW\n\n\nIN the heat and glow of the fine June morning you may see her, the young\nvirgin queen, making ready for her nuptial flight.\n\nAt first she is all hesitancy; wandering to and fro amidst the crowd on\nthe hive-threshold; coquetting with the sunshine; loath to return to the\ndim, pent, murmurous twilight she has forsaken, yet hardly daring to\nlaunch herself on wings that are still untried.\n\nFor three long days and nights since her release from the prison-cell she\nhas been a curiously solitary figure in the busy throng within the hive.\nInstead of the enthusiastic, welcoming world she expected, she finds none\nbut unregarding strangers about her. Not a drone glances her way, and\nthe worker-bees go upon their business in seeming unconcern at her\npresence. They do not even trouble themselves to feed her, and she is\nleft to forage for herself as best she may. A conspiracy of indifference\nis on the clan\u2014all part of a deep design for her education, if she only\nknew it, but singularly damping to the ardours, and great ideas of\ndestiny, that gather within her day by day. At length the call comes for\nwhich all are secretly waiting, and obeying irresistibly, she presses out\ninto the light.\n\nAs she stands hesitating, the hot June sun falls upon her, laving her in\nmolten gold. The blue sky beckons her upward. All the world of colour\nand incense and life calls her to her wooing, and she must needs obey.\nWith a little glad flutter of the wings, she breaks at last from the\nscrambling company about her, and soars up into the light.\n\nWarily now she hovers, taking careful stock of her home and its\nsurroundings. Then round and round, in ever widening and lifting\ncircles, each sweep upward giving her a broader view of the world that\nlies beyond. And then away into the blue sky so swiftly that no human\neye can follow; yet only for a short flight. She is back again now,\nalmost before you have missed her, and hurrying, frightened at her own\naudacity, into the old safe gloom of the hive.\n\nThus she dallies, to and fro between the sunshine and the darkness, each\ntime adventuring a little farther into the blue playground of the upper\nair, until at length the inevitable comes to pass. A great drone\u2014one of\nthe roistering crowd that fills the bee-garden with its hoarse noontide\nmusic\u2014spies her, and gives instant chase. At sight of him she wheels,\nand darts away into the sunshine at lightning speed. Yet the first drone\nhas hardly stretched a wing before another is after him, and still\nanother. Thick and fast from all points they gather for the race, until\nthe fleeing queen has drawn a whole bevy of them, streaming like a little\ngrey cloud behind her. This much you can see as you strain your eyes in\ntheir track; but in a moment quarry and huntsmen have vanished together,\nvolleying, as it seemed, straight up into the farthermost skies.\n\nFrom her birth to the day when that terrible, living cordon closes about\nher, almost the whole life of the queen-bee can be followed step by step.\nOnly this one moment of her bridal stands unrevealed, and perhaps for\never unrevealable, to human eyes. You can picture to yourself the wild\nchevy-chase through the clear June air and sunshine; you can give, in\nfancy, the prize to the strongest and the fleetest; but all you will know\nfor certain is that in a little while the queen returns to the hive,\nsobered and solitary, trailing behind her infallible evidence of her\nimpregnation and the death of the victorious drone. She has been the\nbride of a moment; now she is to be the widow of a lifetime.\nHenceforward her days are to be spent in the twilight cloisters of the\nhive, flying abroad so rarely that many an old experienced beeman will\nsay she comes forth only once a year when she leads a swarm. But in her\nbody now she carries the seed from which will spring up a whole nation.\nBefore her marriage-flight she was the least considered of all the\ncolony; now she is welcomed home with public ovation; lauded, fed, and\nfondled; set up in the high place, a living symbol of the tens of\nthousands unborn. As in olden, savage times, the royal festivals had\ntheir human sacrifices, so this paramount day in the perfected communism\nof the bee-people must vent its rejoicing in slaughter. But it is not\ntribute of common slaves that is now to redden the State-shambles, nor\nwill the work fall to the common executioner\u2019s knife. There are captive\nqueens in the citadel\u2014a royal sacrifice ready to hand, and a royal blade\nhungering for the task. Once the queen has proved her intrinsic\nmotherhood, and the first few worker-eggs have been laid in the comb, the\nguards will stand away from the royal prison-cells and let her wreak her\nwill upon them. It is all very ghastly in a miniature way, yet very\nqueenly, as old traditions of human queenhood go. She gives over her\nnursery-work gladly enough for a moment, and flies to the slaughter,\ntearing down the prison-doors, and putting each clamorous captive\nfiercely to the sword.\n\nApart from this tragic element of sororicide, quickly over and soon\nforgotten in the general rejoicing, there is true romance in the early\nlife-story of the Queen of the Bees\u2014bridehood, wifehood, widowhood,\nfollowing hard upon each other, all in the space of a single hour. But\nin the details of her common everyday life that succeed this tense\nperiod, above all in the wonderful structure of her body and its\nfunctions, there is greater romance still. That she has but a single\ncommerce with the drone, and thereafter is exalted to perpetual\nfecundity; that, through her, sons and daughters can be given to the hive\nin just the proportion needed for the good of the State, or that increase\nof population can be wholly arrested at will, are facts to be accredited\nonly after sure knowledge. And to understand how these results are\nbrought about, it is necessary to learn something of the anatomy, as well\nas the manner of fecundation, of the mother-bee.\n\nIn the first place, as fertilisation of the one sex by the other is\nusually regarded, the queen-bee is not fertilised at all. The vital\nessence of the drone does not penetrate the ovaries of the queen, but\npasses immediately after coition into a receptacle specially provided for\nit, where it is stored, and its effectiveness preserved, during nearly\nthe whole lifetime of the queen. It has been shown that the virgin queen\nis able to lay eggs from which only drones, or male bees, originate. The\nfecundated queen, however, can lay both male and female eggs, and she has\nthe power of depositing either kind when and wherever she wills. The\nwhole thing, amazing as it is, and far-reaching in its results, has, like\nmany other extraordinary devices in nature, a simple explanation. The\ngland wherein is stored the male life-essence, can be opened or closed at\nthe will of the mother-bee, or rather, as will be shown, according to\ncircumstances that for the moment involuntarily but inexorably guide her.\nWhen she is brought to the large drone-cell, this gland remains shut, and\nthe egg escapes without contact with its contents. But at the narrow\nworker-cells the gland in the oviduct is opened, and the egg, in passing,\nabsorbs some of its containing germs. Thus only the female bee is born\nof the union of the two parents; the male bee is the offspring of mother\nalone.\n\nOf this primal incident, the parthenogenesis, or birth of the fully\nequipped male from the virgin female, little more can be said than that\nit is a well-ascertained fact of nature, exemplified in several other\ninsects beside the honey-bee. But while we are witnessing the part\nplayed in the hive by the fecundated queen, with her elaborate organism,\nmuch is to be noted; and here we really get the master-key to a right\nunderstanding of the whole system of bee-government. It would be an\nanomaly if the highest, most important functions of the State had been\nentrusted solely to the queen, whose feeble intelligence renders her, of\nall others, least likely to execute them properly; and we find, in fact,\nthat no such reliance is placed on her. The worker-bees, who take her in\ncharge on her return from her mating-flight, henceforth originate her\nevery act and impulse. It has already been seen how she is led from cell\nto cell over the combs; how she is caused to lay, in earliest spring,\nonly a few eggs a day, while in the summer she may produce several\nthousand; and how her output may be checked or augmented at any point\nbetween. Now we are to realise how it is all brought about; or, at\nleast, bring conjecture as near to certainty as may be with so difficult\na theme.\n\nDuring the first two days of her life as a perfect insect, we saw the\nyoung virgin queen mingling with the throng in the hive almost unnoticed,\nand left to seek her own food from the common store like the rest. But\nnow that her fecundation has been achieved, she has a whole suite of\nchamber-women, whose principal duty is to attend to her nourishment.\nFrom their mouths they feed her, giving her, in all probability, the same\nrich substance that was administered to her when but a larva in the cell.\nThis bee-milk consists mainly of honey and pollen pre-digested, but it\nhas been proved that its composition can be altered at will by the\nministering bees. Additions to it are made, either separately, or\ncombined in varying proportions, from three or four distinct glands, each\nof which exudes a liquid differing in nature from that of the rest. The\nparticular kind of nourishment given to a queen who is to be urged on in\nthe work of egg-laying, has the effect of stimulating her ovaries. The\nmore food of this kind she receives, the greater will be her prolificacy.\nOn the other hand, a diminishing allowance will mean a corresponding\ndecrease in her egg-laying powers; while, if this rich diet be withheld\naltogether, and she is forced to help herself from the honey-cells, the\ndevelopment of these eggs may cease entirely, as it actually does in the\ncoldest time of the year. Thus the bees play upon her, producing just\nthe music needed for their purposes. As the days lengthen, and the\nspring sun gets higher and warmer, they gradually waken her docile nature\nto its one paramount task. In the flaming weeks of summer she sits at an\nunending banquet. And when autumn comes, with its chilly nights and\nsteadily failing sun-glow, the generous fare is slowly withdrawn; her\nretinue thins and disperses; at length she becomes a solitary, unmarked\nwanderer again, sipping, with the commonest worker, at the plain\nhousehold sweets.\n\nHow the proportion of the sexes is so unerringly regulated by the\nhive-authorities through their influence on the mother-bee, is not so\nreadily explained; nor can it be at present more than shrewd conjecture,\na backward reckoning from effect to cause. Probably the opening or\nclosing of the fertilising gland, which decides the sex of the egg, is\nautomatic, the attitude of the mother-bee during oviposition determining\nits action. When she enters the narrow worker-cells, her body is\nnecessarily straightened, and this may produce pressure on the\nfecundating gland, resulting in the impregnation of the egg. But in the\nwider drone-cell no such constricted posture is needful, and the egg may\ntherefore pass untouched by the fructifying germ. If this version of the\nmatter be accepted, the natural inference is that either the mother-bee\nis incapable of laying female eggs in the cells specially constructed for\nraising queens\u2014these being the largest of all,\u2014or that there is something\nin the peculiar curve of the cell-cup which compels her to straighten her\nbody in the act, and so brings about the same posture as with the narrow\nworker-cells.\n\nThis theory, although at present the most plausible, has received, it is\ntrue, little confirmation in fact. No one, apparently, has ever seen the\nmother-bee lay in a queen-cell, nor has the transportation thither of a\nworker-egg by the bees actually been witnessed. To cling to the old idea\nof the supremacy of the queen-bee, giving her the power and ability of a\ndespotic, all-wise sovereign, would, of course, set this and many other\nvexed questions at rest. Nothing, however marvellous, would be too much\nto expect of her. But the farther the student of bee-life goes in his\nabsorbing subject, the more impossible the old notion seems. Proof comes\nto him with every hour that the mother-bee is virtually a servant, and\nnever a ruler in the hive; and just as assured testimony reaches him of\nthe universal potency of the worker-bees. All else that takes place\nwithin the hive is brought about by their collective will and agency; and\nit would be strange indeed if this vital matter of progeneration were not\nsubject to the same controlling force.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\nTHE SOVEREIGN WORKER-BEE\n\n\nWATCHING the inner life of the hive in the season of its full activity,\nit is not the untiring spirit of industry pervading the whole\nbee-commonwealth that most excites the student\u2019s wonder, but rather the\nfact that this ceaseless diligence finds so many outlets\u2014that so many\ndifferent kinds of necessary work are going forward at one and the same\ntime.\n\nBetween the brood-combs the nurses are feeding the young larv\u00e6, or\nclearing out the empty cells, or sealing over the full-grown nymphs for\ntheir pre-natal slumber. Hard by, the sowers are at their vital work,\ndriving their living seed-barrow, the queen, over the combs. Elsewhere\nthe wax-makers hang in a silent, densely packed cluster. Overhead, the\nnew honey-combs are growing; the masons building up the cell-walls, while\nthe engineers devise means and ends, calculate strains, put in a strut\nhere, a stay there, or flying buttress from one comb to another, or cut\nnew passageways where the traffic seems too congested for the old\nthoroughfares of the hive.\n\nOn all sides the scavenging bees go to and fro, picking up every particle\nof refuse, and carrying it safely away. Winged undertakers drive their\ntrade in the midst of the throng, bearing the corpses of their comrades,\nold and young, towards the entrance, and flying away with them into the\nsunlight of the young spring day. There is the ventilating army outside\nthe city gates, skilfully organised in relays, so that, day and night, a\nconstant circulation of air is maintained. There are the guard-bees\nclose by, watching all in-comers and out-goers. There is a sort of\nGeneral Purposes Committee ready outside the threshold with a helping\nhand for all: succouring the overladen, grooming down any in need of such\nassistance, gathering up fallen treasure, or, as it would seem, taking\ncareful note of the weather for their next official report. And all\nthrough the hours of sunshine, in unnumbered thousands, the foragers are\ncharging to and fro, some bringing nectar, some staggering in under\nmighty loads of pollen, others with full water-sacs, still more dragging\nbehind them lumps of the curious cement called by the ancients Propolis,\nand used for so many different purposes in the daily work of the hive.\n\n [Picture: The honey-bee (enlarged) from life: and as some ancient\n draughtsmen depicted them]\n\nAnd it all goes on with the regularity of a well ordered human\nsettlement. There is complexity, yet no confusion; there is speed\nwithout hurry Each busy gang of labourers has apparently a distinct and\ndefinite task allotted to it by the central hive-authority; co-operation\nand progress are, to all appearances, deified cause and effect in all the\naffairs of the hive.\n\nIt is easy\u2014nay, inevitable\u2014in any close study of bee-life with the help\nof the modern observation-hive, to overset the ancient idea of absolute\nbee-monarchy under a single king or queen. But it is not so easy to\ndetermine how the general government of the colony is actually carried\non. Innumerable small consultations on minor matters are seen to take\nplace on every side during each moment of the busy day; but nothing like\ngeneral communication is ever visible. And yet, how are the great\nnational movements, such as the despatch of a swarm or the supersedure of\nan old queen, brought about; how are the various common crises of the\nState met, and provided for? The only rational inference seems to be\nthat each worker is in herself the perfect evolved presentment of\nrepublicanism, in whom all imaginable difficulties in collective life\nhave their best solution, tried and proved through the ages, and resorted\nto unerringly as a matter of course. Thus a common need is felt, and met\ninstantaneously by a common, recognised expedient. The judgment of one\nis necessarily the judgment of all. Every problem of daily life, however\nintricate, is solved by the one device, brought to the fine point of\nperfection through the experience of countless generations, and applied\nby each individual to the common want, just as hunger impels all mankind\nto eat.\n\nSuch a condition of affairs, even in a community of human beings, would\nimply a very high state of mental, if not of moral, development in the\nindividual. It would mean entire negation of self in the interest of the\ncommon good. Even with all the forces of heredity at work, it would need\nstern ascetic training for the young, and for the transgressing adult a\nswift and merciless retribution, if the last dream of communism\u2014the\nabolition of all law and penalty, and the establishment of a natural\nautonomy of well-doing\u2014were ever to be realised in fact. And yet some\nsuch state of things appears to exist in the bee-commonwealth: the\nindividual worker-bee seems to be the product of some such system carried\non through an indefinite space of time. Order is preserved, public works\ngo diligently forward, the clock of the national progress keeps time to\nthe second, not because there is a central wisdom-force to plan, to\ngovern, to awe recalcitrants, but because every worker-bee is herself the\nState in miniature, all propensities alien to the pure collective spirit\nhaving been long ago bred out of her by the sheer necessities of her\ncase.\n\nThe worker-bee, as we see her in the hive to-day, although evolution must\nhave been busy through the ages determining her present mind-power and\nbodily conformation, is nevertheless as much a product of direct artifice\nas she is of original nature. We have seen how the egg containing the\nfeminine germ, if given full scope and opportunity, develops into what\nmay be taken as the complete aboriginal type of female bee, differing\nfrom the worker in a dozen essential ways. The queen also is probably,\nin one respect at least\u2014her amazing fecundity\u2014a deliberate creation of\nthe hive-people, as her over-production is brought about by\nover-stimulation to meet an artificial state of affairs. Left to\nherself, under pristine conditions, she would certainly lay on a much\nmore moderate scale. But the worker-bee owes her unique structure and\nmental constitution almost entirely to the intervention of her nurses\nfrom the moment of the hatching of the egg. Careful experiment has\nproved that the queen-larva and the worker-larva are identical up to the\nthird day of their life in the cell, except that the queen has made more\nrapid growth owing to more generous and more ample fare. After the third\nday, the genital system of each larva will begin to develop, if this rich\nnitrogenous diet is maintained. In the case of the queen, this\npre-digested food, well called bee-milk, is lavished on the favoured grub\nup to the last moment of its larval existence, no other food being given.\nBut in the case of the worker-grub, not only has its supply of bee-milk\nbeen restricted in both quantity and quality from the day of its birth,\nbut now\u2014just before the development of the ovaries might be expected\u2014an\nimportant change is made. The allowance of bee milk is greatly reduced,\nwhile plain honey is given in addition, but on the same parsimonious\nscale, to the end of its five days\u2019 larval life.\n\nWhat other influences, if any, are brought to bear on the young\nworker-bee at this portentous stage of her career, it is impossible to\nsay. But at least the change in the food is well ascertained, and the\nresults\u2014whether of this alone, or in combination with other treatment\u2014are\nmore than astounding. Not only is the development of the sex-organs so\ncompletely arrested that hardly a trace of them can be discovered in the\nadult worker-bee, but, from that moment, the larva seems to become an\nessentially different creature, reflecting more and more the attributes\nof her nurses, and showing wider and wider departure from those of the\nmother-bee. As soon as the worker changes into the pupa state, organs\nappear of which the queen has not the faintest rudiments. She receives\nher special equipment for field-work in a pair of baskets for carrying\npollen. Her tongue is lengthened, so that it may reach the nectar hidden\ndeep down in the clover-bells. She is to become a builder, and therefore\nis provided with half a dozen crucibles wherein to prepare the wax. Her\nuseless ovipositor is changed into a weapon: it is straightened,\nshortened; the barbs upon it are multiplied and strengthened; a gland,\nwith which it is furnished, and which, in the queen, contains an all but\nharmless fluid, is now filled with an active poison. Above all, she\ndevelops a brain-power far in excess of that of the normal female bee,\nher mother; and she acquires a whole new set of impulses and aspirations\nfrom beginning to end.\n\nWhile the queen-bee\u2019s natural element is the obscurity of the hive, and\nshe would seem both to hate and fear the sunshine, the worker is\nessentially an outdoor creature, revelling in the light and air. While\nthe queen, though obedient to the destiny that has made her\nover-fruitful, displays nevertheless not the slightest joy of motherhood\nnor interest in her children, the worker, doomed to eternal spinsterhood,\nyet constitutes herself the true mother and nurse and instructress of all\nthe young in the hive. And the price exacted for the authority and power\nwhich she usurps, or was usurped for her by those remote ancestors of\nhers who first invented the sexless honey-bee, must be paid in the\nhardest coin\u2014that of life itself. Instead of the years that nature\nallotted to her kind in the beginning, she is to endure hardly as many\nmonths. Destiny, and her own vaulting ambitions, have given her too\narduous a part to play. Her stunted, yet over-elaborated body and\nover-developed brain, cannot long hold out against the wear and tear of\nthe life she is born to. At best a few months see her dead at her work,\nor using the last pulsations of her worn-out, ragged wings to carry her\naway to the traditional burial-place of the hive; or her end may be to\nfall under the stroke of the State executioners. For the old-age problem\nhas long ago discovered its effective solution in the bee-republic.\nJustice that is capable of being tempered with mercy carries its own mark\nof imperfection indelibly upon it. When the principle of all for the\ncommon good has been driven to its last resort in logic, mercy to the\nindividual can only be another name for robbing Peter to pay Paul. In\nbee-communism the sole title to life is utility, and so the old worn-out,\nuseless workers must go.\n\nThe development of the worker-egg through its various stages of growth,\nuntil the perfectly formed insect emerges from the cell, makes a curious\nstudy. The egg itself is remarkable, for it is covered with an hexagonal\npattern. The large compound eyes of the fully grown bee also show this\nform. Each eye consists of about four thousand separate lenses, and each\nlens is a regular hexagon. Wonder has often been expressed at the\ningenuity of the comb-builders in making the cells six-sided, and thus\ncrowding into a given space more compartments than could be secured by\nthe same amount of material wrought into any other shape. The ancient\nwriters explained this choice of the hexagonal cell by the supposed fact\nthat the six legs of the bee were simultaneously employed in\ncomb-building, each leg constructing its own portion of the cell. A more\nmodern idea is that the particular shape of the cell is accidental, or\nrather the outcome of compelling circumstance, mutual pressure causing\nthe cells to assume the hexagonal form.\n\nNow, it is quite true that soaked peas in a bottle will take this shape\nin swelling, but the analogy will not hold good in respect of\ncomb-building. In the work of the bees there is no pressure or\nconstriction of any kind. Each cell is made separately, being joined on\nto those above it; and the comb expands steadily downward and sideways\nthrough an empty space until the desired limit is reached. A much more\nprobable explanation of the hexagonal form of the cell is that it was\narrived at by experience. The first combs may have been built with round\ncells, the interstices being filled in with wax. But the bee, who is an\nexpert in the science of economy, would quickly see the disadvantage of\nthis plan. And with the hexagonal principle, an old familiar thing in\nthe hive\u2014witness the pattern on the egg-surfaces, and the compound\neye-construction\u2014it would not be long before she hit upon the better,\nmore scientific way.\n\nThere is, however, another reason, and almost as potent a one, for the\nadoption of the six-sided cell both for brood-raising and the storing of\nhoney. It must be remembered that the present system of vertical walls\nparallel and close together, made up of numberless small horizontal\nchambers placed back to back, is not an ideal arrangement either for the\nraising of the young or the storing of food. Yet it is the best possible\ncontrivance under the circumstances, which are forced upon the bee by the\nnecessity of leading a close, crowded, communal life. Air is a prime\nneed for all operations in the hive, but for none more than the\ndevelopment of the young bees. When a queen is to be raised, a full\nsupply of fresh air is given her, but only at the expense of valuable\nspace. With the common kind, of which perhaps ten or fifteen thousand\nmay be maturing in the brood-nest at one and the same time, it is\nobviously impossible to make any such concession. The young worker- or\ndrone-larva must secure what air it can through the narrow cell-top.\nNow, the bee breathes at all stages of its career not through the mouth,\nbut by means of air-holes or spiracles in the sides of its body. If the\ncell were round, the larva, when fairly grown, would fill the space, and\nthe air would reach the spiracles only with difficulty. But, no matter\nwhat the size of the young grub may be, the angles of the hexagon cell\nare never quite filled. They form half a dozen by-passes for the air,\narranged on all sides, and extending right to the base of the cell; and\nthus the larva has the full benefit of the available air-supply, even\nthough it be necessarily scanty.\n\nWith the store-combs the six angles of the cell fulfil an equally\nimportant office. The ideal honey-cell would be one with its mouth\nopening upwards, so that it could be filled in an ordinary rational way.\nBut under the strict economical principles ruling in the hive such an\narrangement would be impracticable. The honey-vats must be stacked one\nover the other in a horizontal position, and therefore must be chargeable\nfrom the end. All cells in the comb have a slight upward tilt, but not\nenough to retain the fluid contents if the cell were a round one. The\neffect of the angles in the hexagon is to increase the retentive property\nof the cell, and experience has taught the bees how to supplement this\nnatural holding power of the angles by just that slight cant of the cell\nwhich is necessary to prevent the nectar running out.\n\nThe worker-bee, during her period of larval life, at first lies coiled up\nat the bottom of the cell, but as her size increases she takes up a\nposition lengthways, with her head towards the cell-mouth. This,\nhowever, is not a constant attitude, for she seems at intervals to make a\nseries of slow gyrations or somersaults, probably to facilitate the\ncasting of her skin, which she accomplishes several times during her five\ndays\u2019 life as a grub. At the end of this time the nurse-bees stop the\nfeeding process and seal up the cell. Now the larva sets to work, first\nto spin herself a silken shroud before entering on her long sleep as a\nchrysalis, and then to change her skin for the last time. In the case of\nthe worker these fine-wrought sleeping-clothes envelop her whole body,\nforming a continuous cocoon. But the queen-larva weaves herself only a\nscanty sort of cloak, covering her head and thorax, but leaving her\nnether portions bare. The theory usually advanced in explanation of this\nis, that when the surplus queens are slaughtered in their cells by the\naccepted mother-bee after her fertilisation, the fell work is rendered\neasier by the absence of the tough material of the cocoon over the parts\ngenerally attacked. It seems to be well substantiated that in a battle\nof queens the stings are not used haphazard, as with the workers, but\neach queen tries to thrust her weapon into one of her enemy\u2019s spiracles\nor breathing-holes, of which she possesses fourteen, seven on each side.\nAnd a stroke dealt in this way appears to be always fatal.\n\nBut, in all likelihood, the true reason why the queen sleeps in a short\ngown made of tough, coarse fibre must be looked for somewhere back in the\nold ancestral history of the honey-bee. It is probably safe to consider\nthe complete worker cocoon as a comparatively recent introduction,\nevolved to meet some necessity arising since the bee-people became a\ncivilised race. But what its true origin was appears to be out of the\nreach of all conjecture. A curious fact is that these cocoons are never\nremoved from the cell. They remain fixed to its sides throughout, and\nthough the cell is otherwise carefully cleaned after the young bee has\nvacated it, the cocoon is never interfered with, but continues as a\npermanent lining to the cell. The same thing occurs with all successive\ngenerations, each bee leaving her swaddling-clothes behind her, until so\ngreat an accumulation occurs that the cell becomes too small for breeding\nany but a puny, undersized race. With wild bees, where the nest has been\nconstructed in a tree-hollow, and there is usually plenty of surplus\nroom, the old brood-combs may be eventually abandoned and fresh ones\nbuilt farther on. Thus the stock generally shifts its station from year\nto year. These natural bee-nests, or bee-bikes, as country people call\nthem, often reach a great age. Sometimes a swarm will get under the\nrafters in a house-roof, and may be left undisturbed for generations. In\none case bees were traditionally supposed to have inhabited a blind loft\nin a farmhouse continuously for forty or fifty years. A legend rife in\nthe village credited them with having stored many tons of honey, but when\nthe stock was sulphured little more than a vast accumulation of comb was\ndiscovered. This comb was of all ages, from a few weeks old to an\nunconjecturable number of years. Much of it was perfectly black, and the\ncells choked up with pupa cocoons.\n\nThe fact that egg-laying is continued in these combs where others are not\navailable, even though the capacity of the cells has been greatly\nreduced, seems to cast an added doubt on the theory that the size of the\ncell is responsible for the fertilisation or non-fertilisation of the egg\nas it is deposited by the queen. Very old drone-comb is sometimes found\nin use for breeding purposes where the cells have become no larger than\nthose used for normal worker-brood. And yet the queen continues to lay\nin them unimpregnated eggs. The whole question is still hedged round\nwith difficulties.\n\nThe young worker-bee, at the end of about three weeks from its first\ninception, breaks from its chrysalis-skin, and begins to gnaw its way\nthrough the cell-cover. The pollen, which is combined with the wax to\nform this capping, discharges a double office. It makes the wax porous\nfor the admittance of air, and it renders the cell-cover edible, thus\ncausing the young bee to effect its own release through the promptings of\nits appetite. The new-born worker, although fully grown, is a weak,\ngreyish-hued, flaccid creature for some time after it leaves its cradle.\nIts earliest impulse seems to be to groom itself, and then to wander\nabout on a tour of inspection of its as yet narrow world of gloom and\nnoise and bustle. For the first day or two it does little else than\ncrawl about unnoticed in the busy throng, gradually gaining strength and\nrigidity of limb.\n\n [Picture: Brood-comb, showing eggs, larv\u00e6 in different stages of growth,\n sealed cells, and young bees cutting their way out]\n\nOn the second day it may be seen dipping into the open honey-vats and\npollen-bins, of which a few are always scattered here and there among the\nbrood-cells. After this it seems to waken in earnest to its duties and\nresponsibilities, and takes its place among the nurse-bees, setting to\nwork with the rest in the stupendous task of feeding the larv\u00e6.\n\nIn the ordinary course, the young worker-bee will not leave the hive for\nabout a fortnight after its emergence from the cell. In the interval,\nhowever, it has a whole policy of life to study, and several trades to\nlearn. All the indoor work of the hive appears to be done by the young\nbees during these first weeks of their existence. On them the whole care\nand sustenance of the young brood depend. They produce the wax, and\nbuild the combs; they look after the order and cleanliness of the hive;\nthey are the brewers of the honey, and the keepers of the stores; they\nfeed the queen-bee on her ceaseless rounds, and also give the drones\ntheir daily rations of bee-milk, for it is certain that the male bees\ndepend very largely on the workers in this way, drawing only a part of\ntheir diet from the common stores. The old bees are the foragers; but it\nis probable they are met by the younger ones soon after their return to\nthe hive, and their burden of nectar, being regurgitated, is transferred\nto the pouches of the young bees, by whom it is carried to the\nstore-combs in the upper regions of the hive. At least, if the\nstorage-chamber of a hive be opened during the busy part of the day,\nhardly any old bees will be seen among the crowd, which is industriously\nfilling the cells with the new-gathered sweets.\n\nIt is not until the beginning of the second week of their life that the\nyoung bees make their first essay in the open air, and then it is only\nfor a few minutes during the hottest part of the day. This sudden midday\nuproar is a familiar experience to the bee-keeper during the late spring\nand summer; and although the drones at first contribute largely to the\nchorus, they soon fly away, while the singing cloud of bees which remains\nenveloping every hive at this time, is entirely composed of the young\nhouse-bees taking their daily brief allowance of exercise and air.\n\nIt is found that the glands necessary for the production of the\nbrood-food, as also the wax-generating organs, are largely developed in\nbees only a few weeks old, while, after their first month of life is\nover, these organs are greatly reduced. The bee generally begins outdoor\nwork as a forager soon after she has reached the age of fourteen days.\nIt is, however, probably a week or two longer before she attempts the\nmore serious business of nectar-gathering. Nearly all the pollen-bearers\nare bees in their first young strength and vigour, and therefore\npeculiarly adapted to the carrying of heavy burdens. But as soon as the\nworker-bee has settled down to the great paramount task of honey-getting,\nshe seems to leave the pollen alone. Thus, in a normal colony, the life\nof the honey-bee, short as it is, is carefully planned out from beginning\nto end, each period having its special task for which the age of the bee\nis peculiarly fitted. Yet this rule is no more absolute than any other\nof the ways of the hive. Where the community is short-handed, and there\nare not enough mature workers to gather stores, the young bees will be\nturned out to forage at a much earlier date in their career. In the same\nway, if a hive has been without a queen for some time, and therefore few\nyoung bees are available to care for the brood when the new mother-bee\nhas at last established herself, many of the old workers will stay at\nhome and busy themselves with the nursery-work, which in the ordinary\ncourse they would have long since relinquished.\n\nThere are many such instances of ingenious makeshift, or special\nadaptation, in the ways of the honey-bee. She is a creature full of\nresource on emergencies, but it is in the provision of desperate remedies\nfor really desperate ills that she shines at her brightest. The prime\ndisaster in bee-life is the loss of a queen at a time when it is\nimpossible to appoint a successor. The standard of intelligence, as well\nas that of character, varies among bees almost as much as it does among\nmen. Some colonies will work harder and for longer hours than the rest.\nOthers will ease off when they have put by what they consider a\nsufficiency of stores, and an idle spirit spreads visibly among them. In\na few cases there is a distinct moral twist in the national character,\nand the bees take to robbing their neighbours\u2019 larders instead of working\nto furnish their own.\n\nPermanent queenlessness is a calamity which affects different colonies in\ndifferent ways. With some it means complete despair, a cessation of all\nenterprise or interest in life. Work is stopped; the guards are\nwithdrawn from the gate; the community seems to give up in a body, and to\nawait extinction with no more hope than a batch of criminals in the\ncondemned cell. But with others the common disaster is but a signal for\na universal quickening of wits, a furbishing-up of all possible and\nimpossible resources. To bees of this temper we should look for such\nepisodes as the egg-purloining to supply a queen-cell, which has been\nalready dealt with. But for supreme ingenuity, even though it be the\nforlornest of forlorn hopes, perhaps there is nothing to equal a device\nsometimes resorted to in this last emergency.\n\nLooking through a hive which is not only without a queen, but which is\nwithout any means of raising one, certain mysterious eggs are\nunexpectedly discovered. These eggs are obviously quite newly laid, but\nnot in the orthodox way. A normal queen works consistently from cell to\ncell, over a fairly regular patch of comb, and deposits only one egg in\neach cell; but these eggs in the queenless hive have been laid in a\ncuriously haphazard way. The eggs are straggled over the comb. Two or\nthree cells have been furnished at one spot and a few more at another,\nwithout the slightest attempt at the usual order and system. Moreover,\nsome cells contain single eggs, but others two, or even three, apiece.\nIt looks as if some demented mother-bee from another hive had caught her\nkeepers napping, and had made surreptitious excursion into the queenless\nstock. But the most careful search through the hive will reveal no\nqueen, nor is one to be found. The explanation of the vagary is that one\nof the workers has, in some extraordinary way, succeeded in rousing her\natrophied nature, and has become capable of laying eggs. Yet the doom of\nthe colony is not delayed by this, but rather hastened; for these eggs\nwill produce only drones, and thus still more useless mouths to feed. In\none well-authenticated case, the bees of a queenless colony built a\nqueen-cell, and actually transplanted to it one of these eggs laid by a\nfertile worker, a dead drone being afterwards found in the cell.\n\nHow the laying worker is produced under the spur of the national crisis\ncan only be a matter for speculation, but probably the youngest bee of\nthe colony is plied with the special food usually given to queens, and\nthus her generative faculties are, to a certain extent, developed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\nA ROMANCE OF ANATOMY\n\n\nTHE modern commercial bee-keeper\u2014the man who keeps his bees in hives of\nthe most approved construction, all alike in colour and shape, and all in\nstraight rows\u2014is too prone to look only on the practical side of his\nwork, and to regard with a certain ill-concealed contempt anything that\ndoes not directly promote what is, in his view, the one and only object\nof apiculture, that of honey-getting.\n\nBut with the bee-keeper who is also a bee-lover, the tendency is all the\nother way. To live in the very spirit of wonder, as he must who has once\ndipped down below the surface of hive-life, is to saddle but a slow,\nambling jade for the race in material prosperity. In a bee-garden the\nhabit of rumination comes on one like creeping paralysis, gradually but\nirresistibly. It is one thing, on a fine June morning, to start away\nfrom the house, pipe in mouth and busily trundling the honey-barrow,\nintent on a long day\u2019s work among the hives; it is quite another thing to\nkeep industriously to the task hour after hour, when the sun has fixed\nhis slothful golden grip upon you, and the drowsy song of the bees has\nworked its will on heart and mind.\n\nGood resolutions have a way of petering out, reasonably enough, under\nthese inviting circumstances. The honey-barrow makes the most\ncomfortable seat in the world, and can be pulled up just where the shade\nof the linden-trees is thickest. Moreover, the blue smoke of tobacco,\ndrifting lazily up through the sunshine, adds just that touch of\ndeliberation needed in a scene where all is unmitigated, almost desperate\ntoil; while what difference can it make if one alone be idle in the\nhundred thousand? And so, as often as not, the creaking wheel comes\npermanently to rest under the lindens; the honey is left to the\nhoney-makers; the thoughts follow the bees into their hives, or may-be\nwend away over seas to the great plantations, where the dry weed filling\nthe pipe-bowl was once a green leaf in an ocean of green, flecked over\nwith blossom, and sung over by bees, whose ancestors might have come from\nthis very nook in old England, where it is now all ending in smoke and\nquiet thought.\n\nBut, especially on rainy days, when there is much to do indoors\u2014preparing\nthe section-racks, discharging the honey from the full combs that, empty,\nthey may be returned to the hives for refilling on the morrow, and what\nnot\u2014the tendency to set aside obvious, humdrum duties in beemanship has a\nstill more capable ally.\n\nThe beeman with a microscope has given the seven-leagued boots to his\nconscience; he will never catch up with it again in a whole life\u2019s march.\nIf the daily work in the hive, as seen with the naked eye, is a\nfascinating, duty-dispersing study, a microscopic acquaintance with the\nhive-worker herself, and the details of her extraordinary equipment, lets\none into a whole new world of fact and thought.\n\nIt is only under a strong glass that the true place of the honey-bee in\nthe scale of creation can be entirely estimated. Her work is evident to\nthe most casual eye, but of the worker herself we get only a vague idea\nof a dim-hued, crystal-winged atom running a perpetual race with the wind\nand sunshine, or forming an all but undistinguishable speck in the\nseething, heaving multitudes within the hive.\n\nBut here, on the stage of the microscope, the honey-bee is revealed as a\ntotally new creature; and, by little and little, a story unfolds itself\nabout her which, in its way, is a perfect epic of life. No one can study\nthe perplexities of hive-life for long without a conviction that a\ncreature executing such varied and elaborate works must, of necessity, be\nherself highly developed in body and mind. But it seldom happens, even\nwith the veriest tiro, that the expectation comes anywhere near the\nreality in such an examination of the common worker-bee. The unaided eye\nsees a creature, fashioned simply enough to all appearances\u2014a brown,\nattenuated body, two pairs of wings, the usual six legs common to all\ninsects, and a couple of bent horns, like threshels, that continuously\nwaver to and fro. But under the glass this simplicity at once vanishes.\nFrom the tip of her antenn\u00e6 to the barbed end of her sting, there is\nnothing about the honey-bee that is not made on the most bewilderingly,\ncomplicated plan.\n\nWatching a hive at work on a busy day in summer, the attention is first\ndrawn to the pollen-gatherers, labouring in by the thousand with the big,\noval, brightly-coloured masses fixed to their hindmost legs; and it is\nfirst to the pollen-carrying organism that the glass is now naturally\ndirected. The six legs, which looked all very much alike to the naked\neye, are seen to be in three pairs, and the construction of each pair\ndiffers very markedly from that of its fellows. So far from their being\nsimple legs, each has no fewer than nine jointed parts, and nearly every\npart carries a special piece of mechanism necessary and vital in the\ndaily work of the bee. Whole treatises might be written on the functions\nof the human hand, yet the hand is a very simple contrivance compared\nwith the legs of the honey-bee. The pollen-carrying device is on the\nthigh of the hind leg. The thigh is broadened out and hollowed, and\nround this oblong cavity is a fringe of incurving bristles which look as\nif they would hold anything. But before the pollen can be packed in\nthese baskets it must be collected and kneaded together. Practically the\nwhole body of the bee is used in pollen-gathering. Under the low power\nof the microscope it is seen that hardly any part of the trunk or limb is\nwithout its dense covering of hairs; but with the high objective these\nhairs cease to be hairs, and are changed into actual feathers, delicate\nherring-bone implements, which sweep up the pollen as the bee dives into\nthe flower-cup for the nectar that lies below.\n\nNearly every joint of each leg is furnished with a comb of bristles, with\nwhich this pollen-dust is scraped off and transferred to the\ncarrying-basket after being moistened by the tongue; while the hind-legs\nhave each a complete, perfectly-fashioned curry-comb. Here the leg is\nwidened and flattened, and covered on one side with nine or ten rows of\nshort, strong spines, with which the bee scrapes her body just as a groom\ncurry-combs a horse. At ordinary times she will carefully pack her load\nof pollen into its proper receptacles before returning to the hive, so\nthat it shall be all ready for transference to the cells. At the\ncell-mouth she pushes each lump off by means of her other legs, leaving\nit to be rammed down into the cell by the store-keepers. No distinction\nis made here, every kind and colour of pollen being indiscriminately\nstored in the same cell; and when the cell is full, a thin layer of honey\nis smeared over all, to preserve it from the air. When, however, time\npresses, the bee will not stop to knead up the load, but will carry it\nhome as it is, arriving in the hive smothered completely from head to\nfoot as with gold-dust. Then the house-bees gather round her, soon\nscraping her free of her encumbrance, and she starts off again for\nanother load.\n\nThe fact that insects can walk on both upper and under surfaces\napparently with equal ease, is none the less remarkable because we see it\ngoing on every day of our lives. Yet the fly, crawling up the\nwindow-glass, or running about on the ceiling, owes his power of\ntopsy-turvy perambulation to a very ingenious device. This is well\nillustrated in the foot of a bee. She has a pair of short, strong double\nclaws, which will take her securely over all but the smoothest and\nshiniest surfaces; and it is with these claws that bees form themselves\ninto dense clusters and knots and cables within the hive, holding\nhand-to-hand, as it were, in all directions. But when there is nothing\nfor the claw to hold by, another part of the foot comes into play. This\nis a soft, flexible pad, which is always covered by a thick, oily\nexudation. In walking, the bee puts her feet down three at a time, the\npads adhering instantly they come into contact with the smooth surface.\nAt the next step the other three pads come into play, while the first\nthree are stripped off. But each foot is capable of attaching and\ndetaching itself independently of its fellows. In this case the\nstripping is accomplished by downward pressure of the claws of the same\nfoot.\n\nOn each of her fore-legs the bee has an appliance which fulfils a very\nimportant office. It is a semicircular notch with a fringe of strong\nhairs, and when the leg is bent up, this notch engages with a curious\nprojection on the next upper joint, forming an eyelet roughly circular in\nshape. With this exact and special tool she cleans her antenn\u00e6, and this\nis done at short intervals throughout the whole active time of her life,\nmuch as, in the operation of winking, the human eye is kept cleansed.\nThe tongue also is freed from adhering grains of pollen by this device.\n\nThe question, How does a bee gather the flower-juices to make her honey?\nis met by certain popular naturalists with the assurance that she sucks\nthem through a tube. This is so easy a generalisation that it amounts\nvery nearly to positive error. The tongue of the bee is not a tube, as\nthe word is usually understood. And she laps up the nectar as often as\nshe sucks it. It depends entirely on the quantity to be dealt with; and\na little careful dissection of the mouth-parts of the bee, by means of\nthe microscope and a pair of long needles, will soon make the whole\nmatter clear.\n\nShe is no beauty\u2014the honey-bee, seen at such close quarters; unending\ntoil, and a perverted, baffled nature, do not tend to loveliness in any\nof her sex. But her positive and almost terrifying ugliness, when looked\nat so disadvantageously, is soon forgotten as one comes to realise her\nabounding possession of that other kind of beauty\u2014the beauty of utility.\n\nTo the naked eye her tongue is a bright brown, shining piece, protruding\nfrom her mouth, and hanging down with much the same appearance as an\nelephant\u2019s trunk. Under the microscope it is soon seen that this is not\na tongue in the proper sense, but a continuation of the under-lip. It\nconsists of six or seven different parts capable of being fitted together\nlengthways. There is a central part, longer than the rest, with a hairy\nspatula at its end, and when the other parts are closed about this, the\nwhole virtually forms a tube within a tube. The spatula does the lapping\nwhen only minute quantities of fluid have to be taken up, and these pass\ninto the mouth more by capillary attraction than by actual sucking; but\nwhen there is a brimming cup of nectar to be emptied, the whole mechanism\nof the tongue is brought into play. The longitudinal strips are placed\ntogether edge to edge, and the liquid is drawn out of the flower-cup by\nthe action of the tongue-muscles in much the same way as water is lifted\nby a pump.\n\nNow that we have the head of the bee under observation, many curious\nthings about it can be ascertained. The strong, curved jaws, working\nsideways, are doubly interesting as the main implements used in the\npreparation of the wax, and largely in the comb-building. But the eyes\nand the long, flail-like antenna rivet attention first. Whether the bee\nwas made for her life, or the life\u2014imposed on her by inexorable\nconditions\u2014made the bee what she is to-day, the extraordinary adaptation\nof her physique to her environment is beyond all question. The great\ncompound eyes, with their thousands of facets each pointing in a slightly\ndifferent direction, are obviously made for wide and distant outlooks.\nIt is with these eyes that the bee finds her way out and home over miles\nof country. In the worker the compound eyes occupy the whole sides of\nthe head, but in the drone they are much larger, and meet entirely at the\ntop. Thus, dallying in the sunshine, he is able the while to keep the\nwhole arc of the sky under scrutiny, ready at an instant\u2019s notice to take\nup the love-challenge of the young queens.\n\nBut these large multiple eyes of the bee are of little use to her at\nclose quarters, or in the deep twilight of the hive. For indoor use, and\nfor near vision, she has three other eyes, containing a single lens each,\nand set in her forehead just above her antenn\u00e6. The popular belief, that\nthe honey-bee carries on her busy life, and elaborate enterprises in\ncomplete darkness, is mainly a fallacy. Probably there is always some\nlight, even in the remotest recesses of the hive\u2014enough, at least, for\nthe eyes of the bee, if not for our own vision.\n\nThe bee, however, would seem to depend very little on sight alone in the\nprosecution of her various tasks. There is little doubt that she\npossesses all the other four senses in a marked degree. Both the tongue\nand the lips have certain highly developed structures upon them which can\nbe nothing else than organs of taste; while the most superficial\nacquaintance with the life of the hive must convince anyone that the bee\npossesses the senses of smell and hearing, and that very acutely. Where\nthe seat of these two faculties lies is at present doubtful, and the\nexact functions of the antenn\u00e6 are still a matter of conjecture. But it\nis at least certain that these latter perform vital office in every act\nor enterprise of the bee. It is obvious that the antenn\u00e6 are very\ndelicate organs of touch, but it is equally obvious that they are much\nmore than this. It has been ascertained that they carry no less than six\ntotally different kinds of instruments, each of which must have its\ndistinct use.\n\nObservation of the ways of the honey-bee has been carried on for\nthousands of years. More books have been written about the bee than\nperhaps of all other creatures put together. And yet our knowledge of\nher powers and organisation must still be reckoned in its infancy. The\nmicroscopists have dissected her antenna and isolated all their various\nparts, but of the particular functions of these little or nothing is\nknown at present. There are certain hairs, evenly distributed over the\nwhole surface, which are presumably instruments of touch. But there are\nother hairs, or fine cones, which are hollow, enclosing a delicate\nnerve-fibre; hairs set loosely in a cavity; hairs curved and ringed, and\nof different lengths. Then there are mysterious pits and depressions,\neither open or covered with incredibly thin membranes, enshrining\nnerve-ends only just visible with the highest objectives. And the whole\nis linked up in an intricate nervous system that baffles every art and\npatience of research; while, when all has been investigated and\ndescribed, no one is really any the wiser.\n\nThe antenna are certainly touch-organs, and, in all likelihood, it is by\ntheir means that the bee hears and smells. Yet this only exhausts a few\nof their manifest possibilities. It is quite clear that we must admit\nthe honey-bee to possess other senses than the five we know of; and\u2014for a\nguess\u2014some of these mysterious implements on her antenna may be\nthought-transmitters and -receivers on the wireless plan. The wonderful\nunanimity of action among bees may be due to the fact that they can\nexchange ideas through the air, as men have now at last come to do. The\nfaculty of speech, hitherto held up as man\u2019s insignia of lordship over\nthe rest of creation, may be indeed a crude, archaic thing, compared with\nthe mind-language of the honey-bees.\n\nThere is another conceivable function which the antenn\u00e6 of bees may\nperform\u2014that of unerring and instant estimation of short distances. They\nmay be delicate measuring instruments, not mechanically applied in the\nway of a foot-rule or metric scale, but registering dimensions\ninherently, as our ears record intensity of sound. This would go far to\nexplain how honeycomb is built, how the cells are made all of the same\nshape and size, although hundreds of the mason-bees are at work on the\nstructure, not only at the same moment, but in succession, each bee\ncoming and going in the murmurous gloom of the hive, and beginning\ninstantly and unhesitatingly at the point where her predecessor broke\noff. As the central division of the comb grew, expanding in all\ndirections downward, and the cells were built out horizontally at the\nsame time, the bee would know by her sense of dimension when the limit of\neach side in the hexagonal cell-base was reached, and would know the\nproper angle to turn off at in the laying of the next foundation-line.\n\nAnyone who has watched the flight of the bee must have been struck by its\nsheer facility and freedom no less than by its speed. It is quite\nevident that the bee is not only an accomplished a\u00ebrial navigator, but\nthat she sustains and propels herself through the air with very little\neffort. Obviously her equipment for flight must be a thoroughly\nefficient one, and yet at first glance it is not quite clear how she\nmanages so well. The student of the flight-problem, taking his ideas and\nconception of first principles from the flight of birds, is accustomed to\nbelieve that there are at least two vital indispensable elements in the\nprocess\u2014a pair of wings or combination of a\u00ebroplane and propellers that\nwill sustain as well as drive, and some sort of steering-apparatus like\nthe bird\u2019s tail. Yet, as far as a first general inspection carries us,\nthe bee appears to have no rudder-mechanism at all, but to depend on her\nfour wings for every purpose. The wings of the bird have a variable\naction. They can be used together or separately, and are as capable of\neccentric adjustment, both in themselves and in relation to one another,\nas a pair of human arms. But the bee\u2019s wings have none of this\nadaptability. They have but the one motion, up and down; and they work\nsymmetrically, each wing keeping time with its fellow. Yet the bee\nsteers herself perfectly well in a hundred different evolutions,\naccomplishing all that the bird attains with his more complicated\napparatus for flight.\n\nThe whole problem is bound up with another problem; and the two,\ndifficult of solution apart, easily resolve one another when taken in\nconjunction. Insects are so called because their bodies are in two\nparts, entirely divided except for an extremely slender connecting joint.\nWe are so accustomed to accept this arrangement as a common fact in\nnature that we seldom stop to consider its real significance. It is not\neasy to see how such a construction can be anything else than a drawback\nto any living creature. But in the hive-bee the whole arrangement seems\nto amount to what must be called an ideal inconvenience, seeing that her\nhoney-sac and complicated organs for producing the larval food are in her\nabdomen, with no way to them but through this fine joint. Clearly there\nis some weighty reason for it, out-balancing all other considerations, or\nit would not exist; and when we come to study it in connection with the\nhoney-bee\u2019s peculiar system of flight, we soon arrive at the true\nsolution.\n\nIt has been said that the wings of the bee have a perfectly symmetrical\naction, and that they have a single fixed direction, moving up and down,\nalways at right-angles with the line of the thorax. Under the microscope\neach of the four wings is seen as a transparent, impervious membrane,\nintersected with fine ribs. The front wing, however, has a much stronger\nand stiffer rib running the entire length of its upper edge, and it is on\nthis main rib that almost the entire force of the flight-muscles is\nconcentrated. If you look farther, you will see that the under wing has\na row of fine hooks along its top edge, while the lower edge of the upper\nwing is flanged or folded back. In flight the hooks on one wing engage\nwith the flange on the other, and thus the wings on each side are\nautomatically locked together, forming one continuous air-resisting\nsurface. This combined wing is very flexible throughout, except at its\nupper edge, where it is stiffened by the main rib. In action,\ntherefore,\u2014the force being applied practically to the edge alone, which\nresists the air while the rest of the wing bends to it\u2014the result is that\nthe whole wing becomes an oscillating, inclined plane, whose inclination,\nforward on the down-stroke, is still forward on the up-stroke, because\nthe plane-inclination reverses itself automatically.\n\nFrom this it will be understood how the flexible wings of the bee are\nused in straightforward flight; but, seeing that the wings themselves are\nincapable of independent or irregular action, it is not yet clear how the\nbee contrives to steer herself, rising or descending, or turning\nsideways, just as the mood seizes her. It is here that the reason for\nthe peculiar construction of her body becomes plain. The fine link which\nunites her abdomen to her thorax is really an universal joint, actuated\nby a series of powerful cross-muscles, and the bee steers herself through\nthe air by using the weight of the lower half of her body as a\ncounterpoise. By swinging her heavy abdomen forward or backward, or from\nside to side, she changes her centre of gravity, and the line of force of\nher a\u00ebroplanes, at one and the same time. Actually her body keeps its\nvertical position, being her heaviest part, and it is the lighter\nwing-supporting thorax which is deflected. But the result is the same,\nand every variety and direction of flight is accomplished by the bee on\nwhat seems a far more simple plan than that evidenced in the flight of\nbirds.\n\nOne of the most difficult things to account for in the life of the\nhoney-bee is the fact that the temperature of the hive can be varied at\nthe will of its occupants. The system of mechanical ventilation will, of\ncourse, explain how the hive is kept cool in the greatest heats of\nsummer, but it does not explain the sudden accessions of heat to which it\nis liable from time to time. These occur principally when the wax is\nbeing generated. Under the bronze armour-plates of her body the\nworker-bee has six shallow, but broad depressions, beneath which the\nwax-glands are placed. Perfect rest and a high temperature seem to be\nnecessary for the stimulation of these glands, and the wax-makers consume\na large quantity of sweet-food during the process. It is generally\nstated that bees fill themselves from the stores of mature honey before\nuniting in the cluster; but it is more probable that the food consumed\nduring wax-making is principally the nectar, almost as gathered from the\nflowers. This view is confirmed by certain experiments which were\nundertaken to decide the amount of food assimilated during the production\nof a given weight of wax. When the bees had access only to honey, it was\nfound that five or six pounds were needed during the time that one pound\nof wax was produced. But if the bees were fed on a plain syrup of\ncane-sugar, more wax was generated. The chemical composition of fresh\nnectar is almost identical with that of sugar from the sugar-cane, but\nmature honey contains practically no cane-sugar at all. It is very\ndoubtful, therefore, if the economic bee would deplete her hard-won\nstores of honey for a purpose that could be better accomplished in\nanother and cheaper way. And it should also be borne in mind that the\nnatural time for comb-building coincides with the season when nectar is\nin greatest plenty.\n\nThese sudden variations in temperature appear to be brought about by a\nwholesale increase in the rate of respiration among the bees; and there\nis nothing that excites the wonder of the student of hive-life more than\nthe breathing-apparatus of the bee, as seen under the microscope.\nPractically her whole physical system is directly supplied with air,\ndrawn in through her many spiracles. As far as scientists have been able\nto determine, there is not a fibre or nerve in her entire body that is\nnot reached by the minute ramifications of the air-ducts, in direct\ncommunication with the great main breathing-vessels in the bee\u2019s abdomen.\nRespiration appears to be largely voluntary with the honey-bee. She\nbreathes only when the necessity for it arises, and will sometimes arrest\nthe action entirely for three or four minutes together. But when the\nwax-making is going forward, or swarming-time is near at hand, the quick,\nvibratory movement of respiration is visible everywhere in the throng of\nbees, and the temperature of the hive climbs up often to a dozen degrees\nabove its normal point.\n\nThe breathing system of the honey-bee is closely connected with her\nsound-organs. Anyone asked to describe the note made by a bee would\nprobably say that she hums or buzzes, and there would be an end to most\nideas on the matter. But to the beeman this is a pitifully inadequate\nstatement of the truth. The bee comprises in herself not one, but a\nwhole choir of voices, and she has a compass of at least an octave and a\nhalf. Every one of her fourteen spiracles, and each of her wings, is\ncapable of producing sound; and these sounds can be endlessly varied in\nquality, intensity, and pitch. It is no exaggeration to say that the\nhoney-bee is as accomplished a musician as any bird; but as each\nindividual voice is for the most part lost in the general symphony of the\nhive, it is difficult to get a complete idea of her capabilities as a\nsoloist.\n\nThe voice-apparatus in the spiracles is one of the most intricate things\nin the whole anatomy of the bee. It has a multiplicity of parts, and is\nobviously designed to convey a great variety of sounds. The wings also\nproduce tones that run up or down in the scale, according to their rate\nof oscillation; and from them comes the sibilant note usually called\nbuzzing. Listening to the hive-music at any season of the year, it is\nimpossible to resist the thought that bees not only hold individual\ncommunication by means of these infinitely varied sounds, but that the\ngeneral note given out by the multitude unerringly expresses the state of\naffairs within the hive for the time being. A prosperous stock voices\nits busy contentment in a way impossible to misunderstand. It is a deep,\nblithe, resonant sound, like the steady running of well-oiled machinery,\neach wheel adding its own whirring melody to the general theme. Weak or\nfamishing colonies give out a wavering, intermittent note, the very voice\nof complaint and fear for the future. When a hive has lost its queen, a\ncapable bee-master should have no difficulty in divining the trouble by\nlistening at the hive-entrance. A queenless stock is all clamour and the\nhubbub of divided counsels. The ordinary rich reverberation of labour\nstops, and a sound of panic goes to and fro in the hive unceasingly. If\na hive be quietly opened, and its queen removed with little disturbance,\nit may be some time before the bees discover their loss. Some colonies\nexperimented with in this way realise their deprivation immediately, and\nthe hue-and-cry begins at once. But one of the most curious facts in\nbee-life is the variation in intelligence, and alertness of perception,\nbetween the different hives. A steady-going, dull race may be a\nconsiderable time before it perceives the absence of its queen. The\ncommon note of work goes on unchanged until the fact dawns on it. And\nthen the peculiar shrill outcry commences, overpowering all other sounds\nuntil reason again asserts itself in the colony, and the bees set about\nthe work of raising another queen.\n\nThe voice of the drone is deeper and hoarser than that of the worker-bee,\nby reason of his larger body; and his noisier buzzing is explained by his\ngreater length and breadth of wing. The queen also has a deeper, more\nhusky voice during flight; but she has, in addition, a peculiar cry of\nher own, an old familiar sound to bee-keepers all the world over. It is\nheard principally just before the swarming of the hive. Certain old\nskeppists profess to be able to foretell the date on which a swarm will\nissue by studying the cry of the queen. On quiet nights, just before the\nswarming-season commences, it may frequently be heard above the general\nmurmur of the hive by bending the ear down to the entrance. It is a\nshrill piping sound, repeated over and over again, and often answered by\nother and fainter notes. How it is produced is not certainly known, but\nprobably it is caused by the wings or legs being sharply rubbed together,\nmuch as a cricket or grasshopper utters its cry. The louder note is made\nby the old queen, and there is no doubt of its import. Jealousy and the\nlust of battle are on her, and she is trying to get at the young\nprincesses in their cells. The cry is one of baffled fury as she strives\nwith the guards about the cells, and the answering notes come from the\nimprisoned queens who are just as eager for the fray. The old skeppists\nare never far out in their reckoning. When this state of affairs has\nbegun, the crisis is imminent; and the morrow is sure to see the\nemigrating party setting off for its new home, carrying the old queen\nirresistibly with it.\n\nIt has been said that the nurse-bees, who have the entire charge and care\nof the young brood, feed the larv\u00e6 from their mouths with a thick white\nfluid, which is aptly called bee-milk. All the time the nurses are\nengaged on this work, they are themselves hearty eaters of both honey and\npollen; so that at first sight it appears as if the bee had the power of\ninstantaneous digestion, feeding herself at one moment, and, at the next,\nregurgitating this food, changed into a totally different substance, to\nfeed the young grubs. Moreover, there is another wonderful thing\nregarding this bee-milk. It has been proved by careful analysis that its\ncomposition varies considerably. The male, female, and queen-larv\u00e6 are\nall fed with it, but its constitution differs, not only with each kind of\nlarva, but according to the age the larva has reached. The bee must\ntherefore have her whole system of digestion under full voluntary\ncontrol. How she manages this critical part of her work can only be\nunderstood by the aid of a good microscope.\n\n [Picture: The bee nursery; tending the young brood]\n\nPerhaps there is nothing more wonderful, in the whole wonderful anatomy\nof the bee, than her digestive organism and its contributory system of\nglands, each of which has its special and important use. When she draws\nup the nectar from the flowers, it passes at once into the first of her\ntwo stomachs, which is simply and solely a reservoir. Here it can remain\nindefinitely at the will of the bee; or it can be thrown up and poured\ninto the comb-cells, to be brewed into honey; or it can be allowed to\npass through a valve at the base of the reservoir into the bee\u2019s second\nand lower stomach, where digestion takes place and the honey and pollen\nare formed into chyle. But, by one of the most ingenious devices in\nnature, this second stomach is also capable of returning its contents to\nthe mouth, and the chyle is there changed into bee-milk for the\nnourishment of the larv\u00e6.\n\nThe worker-bee has, in all, four distinct glands, each secreting a fluid\nwith properties different from the other three. These glands are all\nsituated in the mouth. Two of them have a common opening in the upper\nside of the root of the tongue; and as the bee sucks, their combined\nsecretions mingle with the flower juices automatically, and the first\nstep in the change of the nectar into honey takes place. The third gland\nis in the roof of the mouth, and it is the secretion from this gland\nwhich acts on the regurgitated chyle, and changes it into brood-food.\nThe fourth gland is double. These twin-glands have their openings at the\nbase of the jaws, and the action of chewing is necessary to excite their\nsecretion.\n\nThe valve between the upper, or honey-stomach, and the lower, or\nchyle-stomach, has an extensible neck, and the bee can, at will, raise\nthis telescopic piece through the interior of the honey-sac until the\nvalve is pressed against the opening into the gullet. Thus the contents\nof the lower stomach can be driven into the mouth without coming into\ncontact with the stored sweets in the reservoir, and this pre-digested\nmatter is always ready at an instant\u2019s notice for the use of the larva,\nor for the nourishment of drones or queen.\n\nIt has been said that the nursery-work of the hive is undertaken\nexclusively by the young bees during the first fortnight or so of their\nlives. After this time they make their first foraging expedition,\nbeginning with pollen-gathering, and relinquishing this in turn for the\ncollection of nectar when they have arrived at full maturity. The mature\nworkers take no part in the feeding of the larv\u00e6, except on very rare\nemergencies. In relation to this, it is a curious fact that the gland in\nthe roof of the mouth, which acts on the chyle, forming it into\nbrood-food, is in full development only during the first weeks of the\nworker-bee\u2019s career. After that its activity swiftly declines, until, in\nold workers, it becomes largely atrophied.\n\nThe digestive gland-system of the honey-bee, although it has been fairly\nwell explored by the scientific naturalists, is still much of a mystery,\nand this especially with regard to the glands attached to the jaws. The\nsecretion from these glands\u2014obviously a very powerful acid\u2014is mainly used\nto convert the raw wax from its hard, brittle character into the soft,\nductile material of which the combs are made. It is probably used to\nsome extent, also, in the preparation of the brood-food, in conjunction\nwith the gland in the roof of the mouth. It mingles with the pollen when\nthis is masticated, and no doubt it has various other uses; but no one\nseems as yet to have discovered why these two glands should be so\nenormously developed in the queen, who takes no part in the nursery-work\nor comb-building. The whole question will naturally have little more\nthan a passing interest for the general reader; but, to the bee-keeper\nwith a microscope, it takes a prominent place among the debatable things\nin hive-life. If the difference between the queen-bee and the\nworker-bee\u2014a difference of organic structure as well as mere\ndevelopment\u2014is really brought about by variation in the quality and\nquantity of the food supplied to the larva, then the action of these\nglands cannot be over-estimated in importance, and cannot be studied too\ndeeply: they form the very spring and fount of life. Yet is it certain\nthat the influence brought to bear on the young grubs by the nurse-bees\nis wholly restricted to the matter of food? The worker-bee has several\ncurious organs and gland-systems in various parts of her body, in\naddition to those already enumerated, to which no rational use has yet\nbeen assigned. The more we study her extraordinary equipment, the less\njustification there appears to be for dogmatising about her, limiting or\nparticularising the function of any one gland or implement in the whole\nunending array. The old adage, that there is nothing invariable about\nthe honey-bee, is like to be as true with regard to her physiology as it\nis with her habits of life; and, for all we can tell, to-morrow\u2019s\nknowledge may render obsolete much of the carefully garnered knowledge of\nto-day.\n\nIf the story of the honey-bee\u2019s anatomy has everywhere some of the\nelements of romance about it\u2014in its unexpected incidents, its adventurous\ncolour, its shadow of a great design\u2014this spirit suffers no abatement\nwhen we come, in a last view of it, to consider her as one carrying arms,\none bearing such a weapon of offence as never came into human mind to\nfashion. The long curved scimitar of the queen, which she cherishes so\ncarefully that nothing will induce her to strike with it except when it\nis to be turned against a royal foe, is otherwise little else than a\nharmless piece of domestic furniture. But the sting of the valorous\nworker-bee, seen under a microscope, is a positively terrifying engine of\ndestruction. Popular science generally describes it as a sheath\ncontaining a barbed and poisonous dart; and the trite comparison is\nalways made of the bee\u2019s sting with the finest sewing-needle, the latter\nbeing likened to a rough bar of iron. The idea of a sheath is pure\nfiction, as a little painstaking examination will soon reveal.\n\nThe bee\u2019s sting is made up of three separate lances, each with a barbed\nedge, and each capable of being thrust forward independently of the\nothers. The central and broader lance has a hollow face, furnished at\neach side with a rail, or beading, which runs its whole length. On the\nback of each of the other two lances there is a longitudinal groove, and\ninto these grooves fit the raised beadings of the central lancet. Thus\nthe sting is like a sword with three blades\u2014united, but sliding upon one\nanother\u2014the barbed points of which continue to advance alternately into\nthe wound, going ever deeper and deeper of their own malice aforethought\nafter the initial thrust is made. It is a device of war, compared to\nwhich the explosive bullet is but a clumsy brutality. Yet this is not\nall. To make its death-dealing powers doubly sure, this thorough-minded\namazon must fill the haft of her triple blade with a subtle poison, and\nso contrive its sliding mechanism that the same impulse, which drives the\npoints successively forward, drenches the whole weapon with a fatal\njuice.\n\nThe tendency to be unduly scientific, to meet these things with exact and\nunimaginative interest, receives its final quietus here. For he who\nrealises the whole deadly efficacy of the honey-bee\u2019s sting cannot\nlogically pass it by as a mere remarkable provision of nature, praising\nGod for it complacently, but must concede it a much wider significance.\nThis complicated weapon of the stunted, sex-perverted worker-bee owes its\nexistence as much to deliberate art as to nature, or those who watch the\nOmnipotent in hive-life are strangely and perversely led astray. In the\nqueen-mother, whose physical organism may be said to be comparatively\nunchanged from its aboriginal type, we see the part corresponding to the\nworker\u2019s sting, essentially another creation. The queen\u2019s ovipositor is\nlonger; it is curved; the barbs upon it are small and insignificant; the\nfluid in the secreting-gland is no poison at all, but a thick opaque\nsubstance, whose true use is probably to glue the eggs safely to the\nbottoms of the cells. She is also provided with a pair of blunt\ninstruments covered with sensitive hairs, which serve, with the\novipositor, to guide the egg securely to its destination. The worker-bee\nhas these feelers on either side of her sting, but she has perverted them\nto a very different office, that of seeking out the vulnerable parts of\nher enemy. And what a drastic change her will, or that of her\nfoster-mothers, has wrought in the whole contrivance! She has bartered\nthe privilege of motherhood and years of life for a few short months and\na share in the communal sovereignty. She must be ready to further the\nwell-being of the hive by the art of war as well as by the arts of peace.\nTherefore she has deliberately helped in fashioning the ploughshares into\ncannon. A little change in her food as a nursling, an infinitesimal\nleaking from a gland that takes the full power of the strongest glass to\nsee,\u2014and, with all the other multitudinous changes of form and character,\nthis last miracle comes quietly into being. The egg-depositing shaft\ngrows short and straight; its moderate indentations become cruel jagged\nbarbs designed to hold as well as to kill; the harmless, egg-fastening\ngluten is quickened into a virulent poison; and the death-dealing thing\nis ready and ripe for service against all honey-lovers, the hereditary\nfoes of the hive.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\nTHE MYSTERY OF THE SWARM\n\n\nTHE old \u201cswarm in May,\u201d beloved of ancient beemen, is rapidly becoming a\nthing of the past. Modern hives and modern methods, although they have\nnot as yet achieved their main intent of abolishing natural swarming\naltogether, yet tend to bring this extraordinary ebullition of hive-life\nto its fulfilment later and later in each year. Far from being a virtue,\nas of old, an early swarm, or indeed any swarm at all, is now accounted a\nmisfortune, even a downright disgrace, in scientific beemanship. And yet\nthe bees, though easy to discourage, are hard to teach. In spite of\nroomy hives and a watchful bee-master ready to give them an unbroken\nsuccession of young and fertile queens, and a whole houseful of new\nfurniture at a moment\u2019s notice, still the bees go on playing this mad\ngame of wholesale truantry, and still the bee-keeper must stand looking\nhopelessly on from the midst of his elaborate appliances, while his\nproperty sings about his ears, or wings away into the upper skies,\nirrevocable as last year\u2019s mill-water.\n\n [Picture: A swarm in May]\n\nBeemen call it the swarming fever; and fever it is in very truth. The\nreasons for it have long ago been crystallised into exact and accepted\nphrases. An overcrowded condition of the hive; the desire of the bees to\nget rid of a failing queen; the excitement of the queen herself at the\nmenace of coming rivals; the natural instinct of colonies to increase and\nmultiply\u2014anything but the one all-sufficient and obvious reason, that\nbees swarm because they suddenly and intensely desire it.\n\nThe story of the Sioux Indian,\u2014won for civilisation from boyhood,\nover-educated and overrefined, decorated with a high college-degree and\nadorning a great pulpit, and then casting it all to the four winds,\nstripping and painting himself, and raging away with his kind on the\nwar-trail,\u2014has a near parallel in the behaviour of bees at swarming-time.\nInstinct could never be a party to such an inconsequent, outrageous,\nbrilliantly reckless, joyous proceeding. But it is ever in the way of\nreason to be splendidly unreasonable at times, and here the honey-bee\nshows herself the true child of her origins. From a stern, self-elected\ndestiny-maker, callously pressing to the forefront of life over all\nobstacles of heart and hearth, she changes back, for the nonce, into the\naboriginal bee-woman, thoughtless, pleasure-loving, improvident, spending\nthe garnered treasure of laborious days in the one mad moment\u2019s frolic.\n\nFor it is impossible to regard the incident of the swarm as only one more\nlink in the chain of sober, calculating bee-wisdom. It is obviously a\nlapse, a general falling away from the all-wise, public polity. For a\nsingle hour in her drudging, joyless, perfect life, the worker-bee\nbattens down all the virtues, and rages forth like the Sioux Indian to\nswill at the stream of forbidden love and laughter, unmindful of the\ncost. Just when the common self-abnegation is yielding its rich\nfirst-fruits of prosperity, and the hive is overflowing with its wealth\nof citizens and possessions, this fever comes among them, and spreads\nlike a prairie fire. By all laws of prudence it is now, of all times,\nthat every child of the Mother-State should stand by her mightily, to\nuphold her in the high place won for her by unending toil and innumerable\nlives. But old ancestral memory wakens, calling irresistibly. Nature,\nin the beginning of time, made the honey-bee to inhabit a tropic land,\nwhere there was no need for pent, cold-withstanding houses, nor any use\nin laying up provender for days of dearth, because the land flowed with\nperpetual honey. Bee-life in those far-off ages was all dancing in the\nsunshine, and the bee-woman had little to do but to fly to the nearest\nbrimming flower-cup when her nurslings wanted food, But a cooling world,\nthe ever northward trend of her race, and then the folly of her own\nwisdom\u2014intellect turning upon itself\u2014all combined to lose for her the old\nslothful paradise of plenty. The drone, reasoning inversely by the\nwisdom of his folly, made a better compromise with fate. He held to his\nlife of ease and his gratuitous pleasures at all cost, and let his mate\ngo her way undeterred, blinding his eyes to the new necessities. Work\nand responsibility gradually soured and sharpened and hardened the one,\nwhile dependence on his womenkind as insidiously changed the other into a\ncreature of idleness and the senses. And when he came at last to realise\nthe outcome of it all, it was too late. The matriarchal commonwealth was\nestablished, hedged round securely with a myriad poisoned blades. To\nlive a drone had been his heart\u2019s desire, and now dronehood, mere\nseminality, was allotted to him as a retribution. The things for which\nman lifts his unregarded prayer all his life through, might very well\nprove his fittest punishment, granted to him in the Hereafter: so little\ncan man or drone distinguish between the enduring things of life and\ndeath.\n\nBut of all intolerable fates, that must be least bearable, to have wisely\nwilled and beautifully fashioned our own eternity; and then, being only\nhuman, or at least reasonable, to find its goodness really smooth-going,\ncolour-fast, impregnable at all points, with never a bright break or flaw\nto vary the monotony of well-doing. No wonder the honey-bee swarms,\nbreaks helter-skelter out of her prison-bounds of order, commendable\ntoil, chill, maidenly propriety; and goes rioting away for one short hour\nof joyousness and madcap frolic, such as her prim\u00e6val sisters looked to\nas the common day\u2019s lot, when there were no hives, and motherhood was not\nthe sole prerogative of one in thirty thousand, and when the sun burned\nhigh and cheerily in heaven from end to end of the tropic year. It is\neasy to be wise, and temperately scientific, in accounting for this\nfeverish impulse of the worker-bees, allotting it a sound and circumspect\npart in the furtherance of the general polity. But is it not, in the\nmain, Nature\u2014the atrophied sexual spirit\u2014awakening, or at least stirring\na little in her age-long sleep? In the sultry August evenings the young\nqueens of the ant-hills pour out in unnumbered thousands to meet the\nmales, and people the ruddy sunshine with the glint of their wings. This\nis swarming in its truest sense. The wingless, workful, underground\nexistence follows, but the love-flight of the ants, while it lasts, is\nnone the less a real, intensely joyous thing. And surely the\nswarming-fever that so strangely and inopportunely seizes upon hive-life,\nis at one with it in nature and spirit, although its original purpose and\nvalue have been long ago lost in the ages.\n\n [Picture: A mammoth swarm]\n\nThe one in the whole multitude who alone has the full inheritance of her\nsex, the queen-bee, seems often at the fountain-head of the revolution.\nSometimes, undoubtedly, it is she who first develops this longing,\nfeverish unrest, and by little and little communicates it to the whole\ncolony. Here the variability of bee-nature comes sharply into evidence.\nSome hives will show this restless spirit for many days before the swarm\nissues, while with others the great upheaval seems, as far as the mass of\nbees is concerned, to be a sudden unpremeditated thing occurring in the\nmidst of the universal content and industry. The preparations for\nraising new queens are always taken in hand betimes, but probably this is\nthe work of the far-seeing, sober old bees of the hive, with whom\ncommunism has become a settled and accepted calamity. The bees who will\nultimately constitute the swarm may be supposed to nourish their secret\ndesires from the first moment the queen shows signs of mutability; to\nneglect all their old tasks, first in heart and then in reality; and\nfinally\u2014when the queen\u2019s mood has reached its culminating point, and her\nwork in the hive is in virtual abeyance\u2014to throw down plummet and trowel\nand hod, and rush forth in a wild, hilarious company, urged by a longing\nthat they are as powerless to resist as to understand.\n\nIn the study of bee-life one comes upon many questions, but seldom\nanswers to fit all. If the queen\u2019s fecundation takes place only once in\nher life, and nature intends this to suffice for her whole fruitful\nperiod, it is not easy to see why she should go out with the swarm at\nall. That she is not the inveterate recluse as generally believed, and\nthat she does occasionally make short flights in the open during her\nlaying career, is well proved. The desire, therefore, to see the light\nagain after a long incarceration cannot be urged as her reason for going\noff with the swarm. A much more plausible notion is that the sexual\nspirit is again roused in the queen, just as it seems to be roused for\nthe first time in the worker-bee; and that, with all, the journey is\nundertaken as a mating-flight, a faint re-echo of a racial custom long\nextinct, bearing the closest analogy to the marriage-swarm from the\nant-hill. It must be borne in mind that, although the queen-bee is\nundoubtedly rendered capable of producing her kind of both sexes during\nseveral years, as the result of a single fertilisation, it cannot be\nincontestably held that she never again meets the drone under any\ncircumstances. There is nothing in her physical organism to prevent a\nsecond coition, although with the drone this is impossible, for more\nreasons than the all-sufficient one\u2014that he dies in his marriage-hour.\n\nIn the old bee-gardens, where the \u201cswarm in May\u201d is still a living,\npresent thing, it is pleasant to sit with the proprietor under the rosy\nshade of apple-boughs waiting for the swarms to issue, and \u201ctalking\nbees,\u201d which is the most nerve-soothing, soul-refreshing occupation in\nthe world. There never was a bee-keeper, new style or old style, too\nbusy to talk, provided that you met him with understanding, and were as\nimpatient as he of digressions from the all-important theme. One soon\ngets tired of imparting information as to the wonders of hive-life to the\nignorant and plainly apprehensive stranger, and none sooner than he of\nthe old school. In the quietest apiary of pure-bred English bees there\nare always a few individuals of crotchety nature, who will search you out\nin the shady orchard seat, and, as like as not, knife you on the least\nprovocation. If you are a beeman, you treat these vindictive approaches\nwith unconcern. You go on listening to the old man\u2019s talk, while the bee\nshrills away at your eyelids, or creeps into your ear and out again. If\nyou keep quiet, she will soon relinquish the dull sport, and wing\nharmlessly away; and the thread of the master\u2019s discourse is not\ninterrupted. But the uninformed stranger is a nuisance at these\nsolitudes for two. He flinches and shudders; makes little irritating\nretreats; beats about wildly with his hands; or, if he is made of the\nsternest metal, he sits rigidly upright when he should be reclining at\nhis ease, and turns such a painfully polite, though distracted, ear to\nhis informant, that the stream of talk is sure to dry up incontinently,\nand he feels as little welcome as ghostly Banquo at the feast.\n\nWhen you have once lived among hives it is a sore thing to be without\ntheir music. On warm days, winter and summer alike, there is always this\ndrowsy, dreamy song in the air; and dancing without the fiddlers is no\nmore depressing an occupation than, to a beeman, is loitering in a garden\nof mere silent vegetables and flowers. Sitting now under the bower of\napple-blossoms and watching for the swarms, the full sweet note from the\nhives comes over to you like the very voice of serene content. It\npervades the sunshine. It gently qualifies the slow wind in the\ntree-tops. It lifts and falls like the lilt of a far-off summer sea.\nThis is the labour-song: the song of the swarm is very different. To the\ntrained ear the c\u00e6sura that presently comes in the midst of the music is\nas clear as a pistol-shot, though you may detect no change. The old\nbee-keeper stops short in his wandering tale about famous honey-years of\nhalf a lifetime back, seizes key and pan, and hurries across the garden.\nIt is the old green hive again, he tells you, as you press hard upon his\nheels\u2014it is always the old green hive that has swarmed the earliest every\nMay for years back. And forthwith the key and pan begin their clattering\nding-dong melody.\n\n [Picture: Hiving the swarm]\n\nOld-fashioned bee-keeping is not always a matter of straw. Box-hives,\nwithout, of course, the modern inside furniture, have been in use nearly\nas long as the straw skep; and the hives in the garden are of this\nancient pattern. The old green hive is keeping well up to its\nreputation. Already it is the centre of a swirling crowd of bees, and,\nas you look, a dense black stream of them is pouring out of the entrance\nso fast and furiously that it is almost impossible to distinguish what\nthey are. And the old wild trek-song is growing louder and deeper with\nevery moment, a rich vibrant tenor note unlike any other sound in nature.\nThere is no doubt at all of its import, as you stand in the wing-darkened\nsunshine, caught up in the excitement of it all, and feeling much as if\nyou were facing a tearing sou\u2019-west gale. Every bee of the twenty or\nthirty thousand volleying madly to and fro overhead, is singing her\nbravest and loudest. There is only one meaning to the whole gargantuan\nchorus. It is sheer jubilation melodised: a wild, glad song of freedom,\nas though not a bee amongst them had ever before set eyes on the sunshine\nand the wealth of an English May.\n\nThe great door-key, a ponderous, antiquated piece of metal, beats out its\nclanging note, and the swarm lifts higher and higher into the blue.\nGradually the sombre mist of bees draws closer together, looking now like\na little dark cloud strayed from a forgotten summer storm. Now it sails\nslowly northward, and lightens, as the sunlight is caught by the beating\nwings as in a net of silver; and now it veers away into the very eye of\nthe sun, and changes into black, revolving tracery again; whirring wheels\nwithin wheels of insect-life, spinning-wheels making thread to weave the\ngarments of a whole nation, and humming as never spinning-wheels hummed\nbefore.\n\nBut the beginning of the end is nigh; the time of singing is nearly over.\nThe old beeman stops his weird tom-tomming, throws down key and pan, and\npoints to the topmost branch of a young apple-sapling. You see a little\nblack knot of bees clinging to it no larger than a pigeon\u2019s egg. A\nmoment later, and it has grown to the size of a double fist, and another\nmoment sees it twice this size again, as the flying bees stream towards\nit from all directions. Now it is as big as a quart measure, and the\nbranch is slowly bending down under its weight. In an incredibly short\nspace of time the whole swarm has joined the cluster; they hang together\nin a long, brown, glistening, cigar-shaped mass, well-nigh touching the\nground, and the wild, merry music is over for good.\n\nGently swaying in the sunlight, lifeless and inert but for a few restless\nbees that hum about it, the sight of a settled swarm has an almost\nuncanny effect on most observers. A little before, the whole garden was\nfilled with its deafening, joyous hubbub; now a strange silence has\nfallen, and it is impossible to dissociate from its present state the\nidea of an abject depression and disillusionment, as though the whole\nthing had been but a mad escapade, of which the bees were now heartily\nashamed. If we may conceive the issue of a swarm to be a freak of\nancestral memory, the sudden irresistible impulse to follow an old racial\nhabit, long obsolete, it is not difficult to account for the obvious\nchange of mind that has now come over the absconding host. Packed within\nthe hive in a feverish, surging multitude, disabilities were not\nself-evident as they are now, tried in the light of day.\n\n \u201cViolent delights have violent ends,\n And, in their triumph, die.\u201d\n\nAnd now there is the morrow to be thought of: life to be rendered\npossible in all odds of weather; a home to be made; the queen-mother to\nbe sheltered\u2014she, the one remaining possession of the crowd, beggared\nnow, but so rich a moment before. There is hard work ahead, enough to\nsober the giddiest among them. The madness has gone as quickly as it\ncame, and now the honey-bee is to show herself a reasoning creature, if\nnever before.\n\nIt is believed by most bee-keepers that a swarm selects the site of its\nfuture dwelling some time before the expedition starts, in many cases\nseveral days earlier. An old trick among cottagers is to place out empty\nhives in their gardens, and these not uncommonly attract errant swarms.\nA few bees are seen cruising about, and subjecting the hives to a close\nscrutiny. These pioneer bees disappear, and after a variable time, from\na few minutes to a few hours, or even days, a whole army of bees suddenly\ndescends from the sky and takes possession of the new home. When the\ninterval between the appearance of the scouts and the arrival of the main\nbody, is only a short one, the reconnoitring bees have been manifestly\nsent out by the clustered swarm; but in the case of long periods\nelapsing, the scouts must have been sent in search of the new location\nbefore the swarm issued. Probably, although the bulk of the party is\nimbued with this reckless spirit alone, thinking and caring for nothing\nelse but the escape and the frolic, many of the older and wiser bees\nundertake the matter in a temperate, businesslike way, as they would go\nabout any other important hive-operation. In one sense, therefore, the\nold notion of there being \u201csubordinate lieutenants, captains, and\ngovernours\u201d in a hive may not be so very far from the truth. That these\nscouts are actually sent out to find a suitable site for the new colony,\neither before the swarm leaves or while it is clustered in the open, is a\nwell-established fact, so that some of the bees at least must keep their\nwits about them throughout the general chaos.\n\nAnd with these wiser virgins must be reckoned the queen, in spite of the\nfact that she joins in the public excitement and restlessness. For some\ndays before the great emigration her work of egg-laying is largely\narrested, and this retentive action renders her so heavy and bulky that\noften she can scarcely get on the wing. The object of this is that she\nmay be all the more ready for laying when the new home is established.\nIt is also well ascertained that all swarming bees have their honey-sacs\nwell filled, and this loading up for the journey takes place just before\nthe signal for departure is given. There is great variation in the\nbehaviour of the different stocks in a bee-garden during the swarming\nseason, and many close observers are unable to detect any sure signs that\na particular hive is going to swarm. But it appears fairly well\nestablished that, when a swarm is imminent, nearly all the bees of that\nstock remain at home, even when all other hives in the garden are in full\nforaging activity. Such a hive gives out a peculiar throbbing note,\nwhich suggests the noise made by a powerful locomotive brought to a\nstandstill, but with full steam up, and impatient to be gone. Just\nbefore the issue of the swarm there is often a curious lull in this\npent-up, forceful sound, and probably this is the moment when the\ntravellers are lading themselves up for the march. Immediately after\u2014and\nhere it is difficult not to believe that a definite, authoritative signal\nfor the movement is given\u2014a sudden stir and tumult begins in the centre\nof the crowded hive, much like that caused by a heavy stone cast into\nwater. This radiates swiftly in all directions until it reaches the bees\nnear the entrance, and then the general rush for the daylight starts.\nWhere a hive is much overcrowded there will already be a cluster of bees\nnumbering many thousands packed tightly together on the alighting-board,\nand sometimes covering the whole face of the hive. But this mass melts\naway directly the swarming begins, the waiting bees taking wing all but\nsimultaneously with the others.\n\nIt was anciently believed that the queen led the swarm, but this view is\nnot borne out by modern observation. As often as not half the bees are\non the wing before she makes her appearance, and sometimes she is among\nthe very latest to leave, or she may decide at the last moment not to go\nat all. In this case the bees do not cluster, but after a few minutes\u2019\nwild tarantelle in the sunshine they all troop back to the hive.\n\nWhen once the swarming-party has gone off, the old hive seems to settle\ndown to its ordinary occupations as though nothing out of the way had\nhappened. The congested state of affairs no longer exists, but otherwise\nthe work of the hive is proceeding in the usual way. The bees left\nbehind are mainly young workers who have not yet commenced foraging, but\nthere is always a fair sprinkling of old workers and drones. Generally\nthe hive is queenless for the time being, the new queen not having yet\nbroken from her cell. There may be four or five queen-cells in various\nstages of development, or rarely as many as a dozen. Sometimes, however,\nthe first of the queens will be already hatched and wandering over the\ncombs, meeting, as usual at this stage of her career, perfect\nindifference from all she encounters. But hives have been known to send\noff a swarm when the preparations for raising a new queen have been\nscarcely begun. So variable is the honey-bee in all her ways.\n\n [Picture: The swarm hived]\n\nIf the objects of swarming were merely to relieve the congestion in the\nhive, and to change the mother-bee, the whole thing should now be at an\nend. But the swarming impulse is rooted in far deeper soil than mere\nexpediency. With some strains of bees the fever seems to die out after\nthe one attack, and the stock settles down quietly to work for the rest\nof the season. But more often than not this first taste of adventure\nserves only to whet the national appetite for more. About nine days\nafter the first swarm leaves another swarm often follows, and this may be\nsucceeded by a third or even a fourth at a few days\u2019 interval, resulting\nin some cases in the almost complete extinction of the stock. The old\nskeppists called the second swarm a \u201ccast,\u201d the third was a \u201ccolt,\u201d and\nthe fourth a \u201cfilly.\u201d It is difficult to understand how, in a community\nwhere individual interest is so ruthlessly sacrificed to the general\ngood, this self-destructive policy should be permitted. But taking the\nview that swarming is in the main a vague and incomplete resurrection of\na long obsolete habit in bee-life, a workable theory at once suggests\nitself. Under prim\u00e6val conditions the continued life of the\nmother-colony may have been unnecessary. Its purpose may have been fully\nserved when a number of young queens and drones had been raised, and the\nwhole had swarmed out together, each to form a new settlement. It must\nbe remembered that the bee-hive, persisting indefinitely from year to\nyear, is really quite a modern creation, and became practicable only with\nthe invention of the movable comb-frame, which allowed the bee-master to\neffect the renewal of combs. It has been seen that the brood-combs get\ngradually choked up with the pupa-cocoons, which each bee leaves behind\nit. These webs are so incredibly thin that a dozen of them make little\nappreciable difference to the capacity of the cell, and combs have been\nknown to remain in use for brood-raising as long as twenty years. But\neventually they must become useless; and then, as bees do not, or cannot,\nremove old combs to make way for new, the community must leave for a new\nhome, or gradually die out. Thus the age of the old hives was definitely\nlimited.\n\nModern beemanship has wrought many other changes in the life of the\nhoney-bee in addition to creating the permanent hive-city. The number of\nbees in a single strong stock, housed in a modern frame hive, is probably\nthree times as great as that of a wild colony. The work of the\nbee-master affects almost every aspect of bee-life, enlarging the scale\nand the scope of all that the bees attempt. The result of this is seen\nnot only in an increased population and more extensive works, but in a\nchange in the very systems of life. Plans that work very well on a small\nscale do not always succeed on a large. The sanitary problems of a city\nare necessarily very different from those of a village, in principle as\nwell as in degree. And probably much of the ingenuity of system and\ndevice observable in modern hive-life is directly due to human agency,\nthe new conditions introduced by the bee-master serving to educate the\nbees to greater effort and resource.\n\nThe behaviour of these after-swarms offers a curious contrast to that of\nthe first one. If it were possible to point to one fixed and invariable\nlaw in bee-life, it would be to the fact that a prime swarm will leave\nthe hive only on a fine, warm day, and generally about noon. But casts\nand colts and fillies seem to take no count of time or weather, issuing\njust as the mood besets them, early or late, and caring nothing,\napparently, for the conditions abroad. It is even on record that once a\nsecond swarm came off at midnight, when the moon was at the full and the\nweather very clear and warm.\n\nThere seems altogether much more method in the madness that seizes on a\ncolony swarming for the first time, and if thereafter the hive settles\ndown to its old courses, the national character for sobriety and industry\nsoon rehabilitates itself. But it is just the strength of this public\ninclination towards order and labour which varies so greatly in different\nhives. How matters are likely to go can be readily ascertained by\nsetting careful watch on the hive from the day the first swarm leaves.\nThere are sure to be several queen-cells, some capped over and almost\nready to hatch out, and others in various stages of development. All\nthese cells are constantly and assiduously guarded by the worker-bees,\nbecause directly one of the queens is hatched, her first thought is to\nmake a speedy end to all future rivalry by murdering her sisters. She\ncomes from her cell evidently spoiling for a fight, and imbued to the\ncore with that inveterate hatred of her kind which is the ruling passion\nof her existence.\n\nThat worker-bees and queen-bees should have an identical origin, and yet\nthat the nature of the one is to live in perfect harmony, while the\nnature of the other is to be at perpetual war, is one of those mysterious\nthings in bee-life which probably will never be explained. If the\nqueen-bee of to-day can be really taken as an approximate type of the\naboriginal female of her race, it is not difficult to understand that\nafter her generation in force the communal life of the mother-stock would\nbecome an impossibility, and that with the mating-swarm its natural\nexistence was brought to a close, much as we see it happen in wasp-life.\n\nIt is during the quiet nights, after the issue of a swarm, that the\npeculiar shrill voice of the queen is most frequently heard. As she\nstrives with the guards that surround the cells of the other young queens\nas yet unliberated, she continually utters this quick piping cry, and is\nimmediately answered by the smothered cries of the imprisoned ones, who\nare just as anxious as she for the fray. If the swarming-fever is not\nyet allayed in the hive, this war-cry is bandied to and fro unceasingly;\nand the general ferment deepens, until, the condition of things having\nseemingly grown intolerable, the young queen rushes out, followed by the\ngreater number of the bees. In the case of after-swarms, the concensus\nof evidence is in favour of the belief that the queen is really the\nleader of the party, although here again no positive rule is observed.\n\nIt may happen, however, that the stock is sick of all the turbulence and\nunrest that have so long beset it, and that the general desire is to\nrestore the _status quo_. Under these conditions the sounds from the\nhive may have a very different quality and meaning. The queen still\nsends forth her shrill challenge, but now her cry is immediately followed\nby a curious hissing sound from the bees. It is exactly as if they were\nshouting her down, compelling her to silence by their own uproar; and\nwhen the war-cry of the first liberated queen is thus met by a chorus of\ndisapprobation, it seldom happens that the stock swarms again. In a few\ndays the queen goes forth alone on her honeymooning adventures; and on\nher return she is allowed to indulge her penchant for sororicide to her\nheart\u2019s content.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\nTHE COMB-BUILDERS\n\n\nIN the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to show that the\nhoney-bee lives and moves and has her being in a world which must be\nactuated by something better than mere instinct, in the common usage of\nthe term. To the modern biologist\u2014the earnest out-of-door student of\nlife under all its manifestations\u2014this may appear as a rather obvious and\nunnecessary gilding of gold, and the only question yet undecided may seem\nto be where in the scale of reason the honey-bee is to find her equitable\nplace.\n\nAll bee-lovers must plead guilty to an inveterate partizanship, the\nwriter frankly among their number. There is no laodiceanism in\nbee-craft; and, all the world over, it may be said that, where a few\nbeehives have been got together, there is always to be found a red-hot\nenthusiast not far off. The word \u201cfreemasonry,\u201d in the English tongue,\nhas grown to be a synonym for the truest fraternity; but just as real,\nand almost as far-reaching, is the brotherhood among keepers of bees. No\ndoubt, among themselves the tendency is rather to magnify the virtues and\nachievements of their charges: to be over-lavish of inference from too\nscanty or too isolated facts. And the proved impossibility of having\nanything to do with the honey-bee without being carried away sooner or\nlater on a high wave of enthusiasm, makes any attempt at holding the\nbalances truly between the zealous bee-lover and the interested but\ntemperate-minded reader, a difficult and delicate task. Any writer on\nthe honey-bee nowadays must be reckoned an ultra-specialist in an age of\nspecialism; and here it is not easy to preserve the sense of proportion\nundimmed, especially for one admittedly speaking out of the ranks of\nbeemanship, where all are aiders and abettors in ardour, impatient of any\nestimation falling short of high-water mark.\n\nThe story of the Comb-Builders, however, sets none of the usual pitfalls\nin the way of the over-enthusiastic penman. In its soberest incident and\nleast important detail it is so wonderful, that exuberance of language is\nas powerless to exaggerate, as a niggardly tongue to minimise, its true\nand due effect. If the ordering of the bee-commonwealth\u2014the intricate\nsystems of sanitation, division of labour, treatment of the queen and\nworker-larva, and the like\u2014is subject for marvel, and seems infallibly to\ndenote the possession of high faculties, a much greater degree of acumen\nmust be conceded to the worker-bee when we come to consider her as the\ndesigner and builder of honeycomb.\n\nIt is here that she shines in her most significant light. The\ncomplicated structures with which she fills the bee-city do not call for\nunwearying toil alone: they could never have been fashioned unless the\ncombined arts of engineer, architect, and mathematician had been brought\nto bear on them. Nor are they merely simple constructive and\nmathematical problems which the honey-bee is called upon to face; nor,\nthough difficult, unvarying, and so amenable to instinctive solution. In\nalmost every comb built we see special and necessarily unforeseen\ndifficulties met and triumphantly overcome. In the construction of the\nsix-sided cell, with its base composed of three rhombs or diamonds, the\nbee has adopted a form which our greatest arithmeticians admit to be the\nbest possible for her requirements, and she endeavours to keep to this\nform wherever practicable. But it constantly happens, in her work of\ncomb-building, that local conditions interfere with her plans; and then\nshe will make five-sided cells, or square cells, or triangular, or any\nother form, just as the need impels her. It is a facile, comfortably\nfinite thing to put all this down to a mysterious essence called\ninstinct, with which the organism of the bee has been divinely dosed, as\nmen serve electricity to a Leyden jar. But it was not instinct that made\nWren put the steel cable round the dome of St. Paul\u2019s, nor instinct that\nlifted the crown-stones to the top of the Great Pyramids. These are\nworks of a creature more highly equipped and instigated; yet their\nsupremacy is all of a piece with the honey-comb, which is made of a\nmaterial fragile, light as air, but which, by the art of the bee, becomes\ncapable not only of supporting, but of suspending a weight thirty times\nas great as its own.\n\nThat the bee does not collect her building materials, but derives them\nfrom her own body, is a fact that has come to light only within the last\nhundred and fifty years or so, although several shrewd guesses at the\ntruth are to be found in the works of the medi\u00e6val bee-masters. The\nwasp, who has much of the ingenuity of the honey-bee, but is doomed to\nexercise it in a far more humble direction, makes a six-sided cell; but\nher matter is collected from outside, and can only be put to\ncomparatively simple uses, as it is incapable of bearing tensile strain.\nBeeswax alone, of all constructive materials in the world, seems to meet\nevery requirement. It can be worked into plates as thin as the 1/180th\npart of an inch, which is the normal thickness of the cell-wall. It is\nindestructible to all the elements save heat. It can be rendered soft\nand easily workable, or allowed to harden, while still retaining its\nsuppleness and life. It is a bad conductor of heat, and therefore\nconserves the heat of the hive. Vermin do not prey upon it: so far as is\nknown there is only one creature that will eat it\u2014a peculiar kind of\nmoth-larva, against which, however, a strong stock can always hold its\nown. And then, as the raw materials for its production are secretions of\nthe bee\u2019s own body, the work of preparing it can be carried on when\ndarkness or stress of weather have put an end, for the time being, to\nwork out of doors.\n\nThe first labour undertaken by a swarm, directly it has gained possession\nof its new quarters, is the building of combs. The apparent revulsion of\nfeeling which succeeds the excitement of swarming soon passes off, and\nthe energies of the whole party are at once concentrated on furnishing\nand victualling the new hive. The older bees commence foraging, each bee\nas she goes forth hovering a moment with her head towards the hive, to\nfix its location and appearance in her memory. By far the greater\nportion, however, remain at home and unite in a dense cluster for\nwax-making. Time is everything in these first operations of the new\ncolony. The queen, with whom egg-laying has probably been suspended for\na day past, or even longer, is overburdened with fecundity, and must be\nsupplied with thousands of brood-cells without delay. The foragers will\nbe coming home laden with nectar and pollen, and will need instant\nstorage-room. Wax must be made with all possible expedition, and the\nyoung bees crowd together in the roof of the hive, with their queen snug\nand warm in their midst.\n\nNo doubt one of the chief reasons why swarming bees unite themselves in\nthe solid pendant mass of the cluster so soon after leaving the\nparent-hive, is to hasten this process of wax-formation. It has been\nproved that wax is most easily generated under the influence of great\nheat, and this is well secured in the heart of the cluster. By the time\nthe scouts have decided on the new home, and the swarm must rise again on\nthe wing, a great number of the bees will have their wax-pockets filled,\nand will be ready for the work of comb-making. When a swarm is hived,\neven if it be only a short time after its issue, the little white\nwax-scales can be seen protruding from the armour-joints of many of the\nbees, and these are often dropped and lost in the general confusion.\n\nOne of the most difficult things to observe in bee-life is the actual\nprocess of comb-building. The crush is so great, and the movement of the\nbees so incessant, that at first the comb seems to grow of itself rather\nthan be made by the busy multitude, for ever obscuring it from the\nwatcher\u2019s eyes, or giving him but the rarest glimpse now and then of its\nwhite, delicate frailty of pattern. These early efforts of the\ncomb-builders, produced as they are under forced circumstances, are\noccasionally faulty of design, as though hastily knocked together.\nSometimes the first groups of cells made by a swarm will have a yellow,\nmoist, spongy appearance, with thick, irregular walls, and are obviously\nlittle more than temporary vats to hold the incoming nectar until the\nproper honey-cells can be constructed. This emergency-comb is specially\ninteresting, as affording one more instance of the worker-bee\u2019s\never-ready resource in the presence of difficulties. In the ordinary way\nthe mason-bee hangs quietly in the cluster until her wax-secreting organs\nhave done their work, and the six little oblong scales of brittle\nmaterial are ready for manipulation. These protrude from under the hard\nplates of her abdomen, three on each side, looking much like half-posted\nletters. At one of the knee joints of her hind-leg she has a peculiar\nimplement, of which there is not the slightest trace in the queen-bee.\nThis is like a pair of nippers, but instead of two converging points, it\nis furnished on one side with a row of sharp, stiff bristles; and on the\nother with a shallow spoon. With this special tool the worker-bee grips\nthe wax-scale, and draws it out of its pocket. It is then transferred to\nher jaws, and she hurries off with it to the comb-building. Arrived at\nan unfinished cell, she sets to work to chew up the raw wax into a paste,\nincorporating it with her saliva, and materially increasing its bulk.\nThe resulting soft, ductile matter is then applied to the work, and\nmoulded into its needed shape. In this way, with hundreds of workers\ngoing and coming, the delicate white fabric of brood and honey-comb is\nbuilt up with extraordinary rapidity.\n\nHow the coarse, spongy comb, which swarms will sometimes manufacture, is\nproduced cannot be definitely stated. It has all the appearance of\nhaving been made from raw wax, hurriedly masticated and kneaded up with\nhoney, and probably this is its actual composition. The secretion from\nthe salivary gland, is necessarily slow, and with time pressing and a\nhorde of impatient foragers dinning about her ears, eager to unload and\nbe off again to the clover, the ingenious mason-bee appears to have hit\non the idea of using the contents of her honey-sac as a substitute.\nNothing, however, but a mechanical admixture can take place between honey\nand the raw wax. This dissolves only under the influence of the bee\u2019s\nsaliva, which has intensely acid properties.\n\nTo understand all that the bees have accomplished when a new empty hive\nhas been filled throughout with waxen comb, it is necessary to follow the\noperations of the swarm pretty closely during the first few weeks of its\nseparate life. It is a big undertaking, the building of an entire, new\nbee-city, and the problems that confront the builders are many and\ncomplicated. In the first place, whether she ever attains it or not, the\nworker-bee will aim at nothing short of perfection. Hereditary\nexperience tells her exactly what are the home-requirements of the\ncolony, and she now sets to work to fulfil them in the best imaginable\nway.\n\nA city is to be built which is to accommodate twenty or thirty thousand\nindividuals. Vast nursery-quarters must be constructed, as there may be\nas many as ten or twelve thousand youngsters to cradle at one and the\nsame time. For at least six months of the year no food will be\nobtainable from outside, so that the city must contain large storehouses\ncapable of holding more than a six months\u2019 supply. As the temperature in\nwinter can be kept up only by the bodily warmth of the inhabitants, life\nin the city must be concentrated into the smallest possible space; and\nthe materials of which the city is built must be heat-conserving, while\nits construction must allow of perfect ventilation at all times, and in\nsummer it must permit a free circulation of air, that the surplus heat\ncan be readily carried off. The city must be a fortress as well as a\nhome, and be closed in on every side as a protection against its many\nenemies, as well as the weather.\n\nThere is another, and just as vital a condition governing its\nconstruction\u2014the necessity for strict economy in material. If there were\nany natural substance having the qualities of tenacity, lightness,\nductility, and strength which the bees could obtain out of doors instead\nof wax, no doubt they would use it for comb-building, and they would not\nspend hours of precious time and consume large quantities of hard-won\nstores in the manufacture of their own material. But it seems there is\nnothing in nature possessing the needful properties. Bees collect a\nresinous substance, notably from the buds of the poplar, which they use\nfor stopping up crevices. They dilute this also into a varnish, with\nwhich they paint the finished combs, and sometimes even combine it with\nwax to form a rough filling; but it appears to be useless in\ncell-construction. The whole city must needs be made of wax, and wax\nalone; and the bees are as careful of this precious substance as a miser\nof his gold.\n\nStarting with these conditions\u2014efficient house-accommodation for the\ncolony secured at the least cost in time, labour, and material\u2014the bee\ntackles the problem before her with an ingenuity that is little short of\nastounding. She appears to begin with the central dominant unit of the\ndifficulty, and to work outward, vanquishing subsidiary problems as she\ngoes. Her line of reasoning seems to run somewhat in this way. To raise\nthe young, and store the honey, there is needed some kind of cell or\nreceptacle. The young larv\u00e6 being cylindrical in form, a cylindrical\ncell is indicated; and this shape will serve also for the honey-barrels.\nNot a few, however, but many thousands of these vessels will be required:\nthey must therefore be placed close together, as well for economy of\nspace as for natural warmth. The cells could be grouped together mouth\nupwards in horizontal planes, storey above storey; but such a method of\nconstruction would be economically unsound. To prevent sagging in the\nheat of the hive, and under the weight they will be called to bear, the\ncell-bases would have to be thickened collectively into a substantial\nfloor, which would need shoring-up at intervals\u2014after the manner of the\nwasps. But in this, much valuable material would be diverted from its\nproper use. Obviously, a better plan would be to lay all the cells on\ntheir sides, and pile them up into a vertical wall. And, just as\nobviously, if two walls of these superimposed cells were placed back to\nback, so that one central vertical sheet of wax would serve to stop the\nends of all the cells, right and left, a saving of half the material used\nfor the cell-bottoms would at once be effected.\n\nBut, so far, the design is still only in its crude, initial stage. The\nupright comb, consisting of a double pile of round cells, back to back,\nwith one flat base between, although a great advance on the single sheet\nof horizontal cells, is yet mechanically and economically deficient. The\nround cells leave useless interstices, which take much wax in the\nfilling; while the flat bottoms do not coincide with the form of the\nlarv\u00e6, and thus still more space is wasted. Clearly, improvement can\nonly come by altering the shape of the cell; and now the bee seems to\nhave asked herself-and triumphantly answered\u2014an extremely complex\nquestion.\n\nShe knew how much internal cell-space each larva required for growth.\nThe problem, therefore, was this: of what shape, nearly approaching the\ncylindrical, ought such a cell to be made, which would ensure the right\ndimensions, but which would occupy the least possible room, have the\ngreatest possible strength, consume the least possible material in its\nmanufacture, and possess the property that a number of similar cells\ncould be built up in a double vertical plane, leaving no interstices\neither between the cells or between the planes?\n\nThere is only one solution to this problem; and the honey-bee found\nit\u2014who shall say how many ages ago?\u2014in the hexagon cell, with its base\ncomposed of three rhombs.\n\nThe whole astounding ingenuity of the thing can only be realised when a\npiece of nearly perfect, new-made, virgin-comb has been closely examined.\nIt will be at once seen that the hexagon cells combine together over the\nsurface of the comb in absolute geometrical union, and that the six-sided\nform is round enough for all practical purposes. Looking into the cells\non one side of the comb, it will be noted that their bases take the form\nof depressed pyramids, each made up of three diamond-shaped planes.\n\n [Picture: Honey-comb, transmitted light, showing arrangement of cells on\n both sides]\n\nTurning the comb over, we see that the cells on this side also have\npyramidal bottoms. If the depth of a cell on one side of the comb be\ntaken, and added to the depth of a cell on the other side, and then the\nwidth of the whole comb be measured, it will be found that the combined\ndepth of the two cells perceptibly exceeds the width of the whole comb.\nAt first glance this seems like a case of the less including the greater,\nwhich is a manifest impossibility. But, holding the comb up to the\nlight, a further discovery is made, and the seeming paradox is\neliminated. The bottoms of the cells are so thin as to be almost\ntransparent, and it is at once seen that the cells are not built end to\nend, in line, but that each cell-base on one side of the comb covers part\nof three cell-bases on the other. If the three diamonds, composing\nbetween them the triangular base of a single cell, be perforated with a\nneedle, and the comb turned over, it will be found that the three\nperforations come each in a separate cell. Thus the saving in the total\nwidth of the comb is effected by allowing the pyramidal bases on each\nside to engage alternately like the teeth of a trap; instead of meeting\npoint-blank, they overlap each other, and the faces of the pyramids are\nso contrived that each of them helps to close two cells.\n\nThere is another advantage in this arrangement which will be immediately\nobvious. The apex and three ribs of each pyramidal cell-base form\nfoundation-lines for the cell-walls on the other side of the comb. This\nmeans that not only do all cell-walls abut on an arch, but that every\ncell-base is strengthened throughout by a triple girdering. The result\nis that the amount of wax required in the construction of the comb can be\neverywhere reduced to an absolute minimum. It becomes merely a question\nof what thickness of wax will retain the honey; and this experience\nproves to be no more than 1/180 part of an inch. The whole thing,\nindeed, might very well be taken as an ideal exemplar of the triumph of\nmind over matter.\n\nThe geometric principles brought into play in the construction of\nhoney-comb have been a favourite study with mathematicians of all ages,\nand especially this rhombiform method adopted by the bee in flooring her\ncells. The rhomb is best described as a plane-figure whose four sides\nare equal, like those of a square, but whose angles are not right angles.\nIn such a figure there are necessarily two greater angles and two\nsmaller, facing each other in pairs. The three rhombs composing the base\nof the honey-cell lean together, as has been seen, in the form of a blunt\npyramid; and\u2014treating all angles as negligible factors\u2014the bluntness of\nthis pyramid is found to coincide very aptly with the shape of the\nfull-grown larv\u00e6. But this is not the only reason for the particular\ninclination given by the bee to the rhombs forming the base of each cell.\nEconomy rules here, as in everything else she undertakes; and the truth\nthat she has chosen the one and only form of cell-base which takes the\nleast possible material to construct has received very striking\nconfirmation.\n\nThe story is an old and famous one, but it will bear repeating. A great\nnaturalist once put himself to an infinity of trouble in measuring the\nangles formed by the rhombs in a vast number of comb-cell bases, and he\nfound that these showed remarkable uniformity. It will be clear that the\nhollow pyramid of the cell-bottom will be either deep or shallow,\naccording to the shape of the three rhombs composing it. The apex of the\npyramid is formed by the meeting of three equal angles, one from each\nrhomb; and it is plain that this apex will be sharp or blunt, according\nto whether the meeting angles are wide or narrow. It was, of course,\nimpossible to ascertain the dimensions of these angles with absolutely\nmicroscopical nicety; but, dealing only with the most perfect comb, the\nnaturalist found that the two greater angles in the rhombs measured very\nnearly 110\u00b0, and the two lesser angles 70\u00b0. He also found that the\nangles formed by the conjunction of the cell-sides with the bases had the\nsame dimensions as those of the rhombs. Assuming therefore that,\nmathematically, the angles of the rhombs and cell-sides should be equal,\nhe was able to calculate exactly the angles for which the bees were\nevidently striving in the construction of the rhombs\u2014109\u00b0 28\u2032 and 70\u00b0\n32\u2032.\n\nAnother bee-lover scientist, ruminating over these figures, was much\nimpressed by them, and determined to find out the reason why the bee made\nsuch constant choice of this particular shape of rhomb. He therefore\nconceived the idea of submitting the bee\u2019s judgment on this cell-base\nquestion to an independent authority. Without disclosing his object, he\npropounded the following problem to one of the greatest mathematicians of\nthe day.\n\n\u201cSupposing,\u201d said he, in effect, \u201cyou were required to close the end of\nan hexagonal vessel by three rhombs or diamond-shaped plates, what angles\nmust be given to these rhombs so that the greatest amount of space would\nbe enclosed by the least amount of material?\u201d\n\nIt was a difficult problem, but the mathematician worked it out at last,\nand his answer was \u201c109\u00b0 26\u2032 and 70\u00b0 34.\u201d\n\nNow, the difference between the calculation of the man and the\ncalculation of the bee was an exceedingly small one. No one thought of\ncalling into question the work of the man, who was pre-eminent in his\nworld of figures. It was therefore accepted as a fact that the bee had\nmade a trifling mistake\u2014so trifling, however, that, in the matter of\ncomb-building, it was of no importance. Her reputation was unimpaired:\nto all intents and purposes the honey-cell was still a perfect example of\nutmost capacity secured by least material.\n\nBut another mathematician\u2014a Scotsman this time\u2014went over the whole\nbusiness again, and he proved conclusively that the bee was right, while\nthe first mathematician was wrong. He showed that the true answer to the\nproblem of the angles was 109\u00b0 28\u2032 and 70\u00b0 32\u2032\u2014identically the figures\nobtained by estimation of the honey-comb.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn the foregoing pages the principles involved in the construction of\nhoney-comb have been gone into rather minutely, because it is here that\nthe lines of thought between the old and the new naturalists seem to make\na typical divergence. Both schools are, in the main, agreed on the point\nthat all forms of life emanate from the one omnipotent source; and it\nmatters little whether we speak of the vast periods of time, during which\nthe creation of all things was effected, as ages, or under the old\nBiblical metaphor of days. But whereas the old school appears to insist\non different qualities of life\u2014immortal soul in man, and a mystic,\nsubconscious, perishable thing called instinct in the brute creation\u2014the\nnew school is unable to see any distinction between the intellectual\nequipment of man and brute, but that of degree. Between the honey-bee\nand her masters there is indeed a great gulf fixed, but it is conceivably\nnot unbridgable. And unless we are determined at all cost of logical\nviolence to force a favourite set of square opinions into the round holes\nof observed fact, it is difficult to see how the old position is long to\nremain tenable.\n\nWith regard to this particular question of comb-building, an attempt is\nstill being made to show that it is entirely due to the working of\ncertain natural laws, and is independent of any intelligence or volition\nwhich the bees are supposed to exercise. We are told that the cells are\nalways begun in a circular form, but that they afterwards assume the\nhexagon shape quite automatically, in obedience to the laws of mutual\ninterference and pressure. As a proof of this, it is pointed out that\nthe outside cells of the comb, not being subject to these laws, are\nusually more or less rounded.\n\nThe pressure-theory is hardly worth serious consideration, as it is\nobvious that the growth of a honey-comb is perfectly free and\nuntrammelled in every way. If the bee makes her comb-cells with six\nsides and a pyramidal base unthinkingly, and under the yoke of imperious\nobligation, it is certainly not because the cells force this shape upon\none another, like Buffon\u2019s peas in a bottle.\n\nAnd if we believe that the bee works blindly under the law of mutual\ninterference, any close examination of the results of her work must bring\nus to the conviction that we are only putting aside one marvel for\nsomething more wonderful still. For then we see a natural law taking on\na very unnatural quality\u2014that of intelligent adaptation to circumstances.\nThe comb, intended for use in the hive-nursery, is made in two sizes.\nThat used for cradling the worker-brood has cells measuring \u2155 inch\nacross, and a fraction less than \u00bd inch deep, while that designed for\nraising the drone-larva is built up of cells having a diameter of \u00bc inch,\nand a depth of about \u215d inch. These different-sized cells are not mingled\nindiscriminately over the comb, but are grouped together in large blocks.\nSome of the combs will be entirely composed of worker-cells, which are\nalways in the vast majority; other combs will be made up of both kinds.\n\nThe bees begin a comb by attaching a small block of wax to the roof of\nthe hive. On either side of this they hollow out depressions, which\nbecome the bases of the first cells. The work is then extended downwards\nand sideways, the cell-bases being multiplied in all directions as fast\nas possible, so that there are a great number of unfinished cells in\nprogress long before the walls of the first cells have been completed.\nThere is a very reasonable motive for this procedure. When a house is\nbeing built, as much of the foundations as possible are laid in at the\ncommencement, to allow a large body of bricklayers to get to work on the\nwalls at the same time; and the bee extends her comb-foundations on the\nsame principle.\n\nWhen about half the comb has been finished for worker-brood, it may be\ndecided to commence building drone-cells. As the bases of the\ndrone-cells are larger than those of the worker-cells, it follows that a\nchange must be effected in the ground-plan of the comb. The bees prepare\nfor this transition very cleverly, evidently studying how the regularity\nof the comb may be least interrupted. Sometimes the change is contrived\nwithout any appreciable loss of space, but more often several misshapen\ncells have to be made before the symmetrical progress of the comb is\nresumed. This depends largely on the inherited skill of the bees, which\nvaries according to their strain, as all experienced bee-keepers know.\nNow, if the work of comb-building is carried through by the bees under\nblind compulsion of the natural laws of mutual interference and pressure,\nwhat other law, it may be asked, interferes with these in turn when the\ntransition from one size of cell to another must be made? If it is all a\nsort of crystallisation going on independently of the bees\u2019 will or wish,\nit appears more than curious that the mill should grind large or small,\njust as the needs of the hive demand it.\n\nBut the whole position is really little else than a flagrant example of\nthe evils of argument from a simile. Soaked peas in a bottle will swell\nto hexagons, or rather, dodecahedrons, by the law of mutual interference.\nSoap-bubbles will do the same with no more constriction than their own\nweight. But peas and bubbles are things self-contained and separately\nexisting, before being brought together. If the bees made a vast number\nof separate, round cells, and then combined them simultaneously, no doubt\nall but the outside cells would assume the hexagon form. But the essence\nof the whole art and ingenuity of comb-building lies in the fact that\nthere is no such thing as a separate cell. Each single compartment in\nthe comb shares its parts with no less than nine other compartments. And\nto talk of mutual interference when there is no separate existence is\nploughing the sands indeed.\n\nThere are other circumstances connected with the work of the\ncomb-builders which go far to confirm the position that bees do exercise\nreason, and that of a high order. It has been said that the interior of\na hive in daytime is not altogether deprived of light. Probably, during\nthe hours of greatest activity, the bees have always enough light to see\ntheir way about by means of their wonderful indoor-eyes, which, under the\nmicroscope, have all the solemn wisdom of an owl\u2019s. It is a fact,\nhowever, that comb-building is usually carried on at night-time, when\nother employments are in temporary abeyance. Possibly the\u2014to our\neyes\u2014profoundest darkness may be no darkness at all to the bees; but, to\nall appearances, as we can judge of them, honey-comb is virtually made in\nthe dark.\n\nBut combs are built side by side, often simultaneously. They grow\ndownwards together, yet always preserve their right distance apart; so\nthat, when finished, there will be an intervening gangway between the\nsealed surfaces of about a quarter of an inch, which is just enough to\nallow the two streams of bees to pass each other, back to back. How are\nthese distances preserved, seeing that the bees at work on the bottom\nedge of each comb are separated by a space of, perhaps, an inch and a\nhalf of empty darkness?\n\nA simple experiment will at once give a clue to this. If a hive, in\nwhich a swarm has constructed about half its depth of comb, be canted a\nlittle sideways, so as to throw the combs out of the perpendicular, and\nthe hive be then left for several days, it will be found on examination\nthat all building, from the moment of disturbance, has followed on the\nnew line of verticality. The combs will all be slightly bent to one\nside. This means either that the bees have a natural sense of the\nperpendicular, or that they work by the plumbline, as humanity is\nconstrained to do. The fact seems to be that the hanging cluster of\nwax-making bees performs the office of a living plummet, and really\nguides the comb in its downward progress.\n\nYet, do bees always suspend their combs? Do they never construct a waxen\nstorehouse, raising it tier above tier from the floor of the hive, after\nthe system of the more intelligent creature, Man?\n\n [Picture: Comb built upwards]\n\nThe first commentary on this is, that such a departure from their common\nmethods would be no improvement, but a retrograde step. These long\ncomb-walls of the bees have a close analogy to the modern transatlantic\nsky-scraper building. The trouble with all such buildings is to provide\nthem with sufficient base for their height. If American engineers had at\ntheir disposal a material of adequate tensile strength, and there were\nanything in nature to hang them from, it would be, scientifically, a\nbetter plan to suspend these buildings than to erect them, because the\nhouse would then naturally tend to keep its verticality, and the\nbase-problem would cease to exist. On the same principle the bees,\nhaving at hand a material of almost ideal tensility, and a suitable\nhanging-beam, wisely suspend their heavily, weighted combs from the roof,\ninstead of erecting them, like certain kinds of ant-structures.\n\nBut it is undoubtedly long racial experience, and not inability to follow\nthe humanly approved method, that guides them here. Rarely\u2014so rarely\nthat the writer, in the course of many years spent among bees, has seen\nonly a single example of it\u2014bees will build comb _upwards_, if\ncircumstances will allow no other way. And this would seem not only to\ndrive the last coffin-nail for the poor instinct-theory, but to carve its\nepitaph as well.\n\nIn the instance referred to, a glass-bottomed box had been inverted over\nthe feed-hole of a common hive, and had there remained forgotten. As the\nseason progressed, the hive grew great with bees and honey, and it became\nimperative to build additional store-comb in the box overhead. But its\nslippery glass roof would give no foothold to the builders. Time and\nagain they must have tried to get upon it, with their wax-hods filled and\nready, and each time failed: the ordinary way of comb-building was\nclearly impossible. Then the engineers of the hive, inspired by the\ndifficulty, got to work in another way. On the wooden surface below they\nlaid out the plan of a garner-house, not after their usual method of\nparallel combs, but a regular, oblong house, with cellular storerooms,\nand communicating passages in between. Upon this they raised storey\nabove storey of horizontal cells, until the glass roof was nearly\nreached. At this stage, apparently, the honey-flow came to an end in the\nfields, for the cells in the store-house were never sealed, though all\nwere nearly full of honey; and later in the season it was found and\ncarried away by the bee-master, who still preserves it as a curiosity.\nHe bears a well-known name, {218} and his testimony as to the making of\nthis unique little honey-house is beyond question; but, indeed, it\ncarries in itself infallible evidence of its authenticity. All\nhoney-cells made by bees have a slight upward inclination, which helps,\nas has been already explained, to retain their contents until they can be\ncapped over. And every cell in the storehouse clearly showed this upward\nslant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\nWHERE THE BEE SUCKS\n\n\nIT is characteristic of those unlettered in bee-craft that they are often\nafraid when there is no danger, and will venture with the intrepidity\nthat is born of ignorance where old experienced bee-keepers fear to\ntread.\n\nTemper in bees is one of the most variable qualities in a creature made\nup of variabilities. There are times, when a summer storm is threatening\nand the air is charged with electricity, when to go among the bees is to\ncourt certain disaster; and there are other times, such as the full\nheight of the honey-flow, when almost any liberties can be taken with\nbees, without fear of reprisals. And yet this is not always the rule.\nMuch depends on their lineage and the purity of the strain, and, again,\non the systems of the bee-master. Bees respond as readily as any other\nform of domestic stock to wise and considerate treatment. Handled in a\nfirm, quiet, deliberate way, the most vicious colony can often be dealt\nwith in perfect safety; while the mildest-natured bees will commonly meet\nfumbling indexterity with a prompt challenge to war.\n\nSince the Italian bee was brought to England, some half-century ago,\nthere is no doubt that the original English strain has been greatly\nmodified. Some authorities, indeed, question whether there are any\nabsolutely pure British bees left at all. The golden girdles of the\nItalian crop up in the most unlikely places, and the foreign blood seems\nto have got into the race in all but the remotest parts of the country.\nOne must regret, although it is a vain regret now, that these undesirable\naliens were ever allowed to set foot on the soil. Whatever naturally\nsurvives and thrives in a particular country, must be the most suitable\nthing for that country; and these southern races of the honey-bee seem to\nhave brought back, to the detriment of our own stock, idiosyncrasies long\nago bred out of the native race. Much of the nervous irritability and\nproneness to disease visible in the honey-bee of to-day is more or less\ndirectly traceable to the introduction of foreign blood; and the grand\nspecial advantage of the Italian bee\u2014its much vaunted and widely\nadvertised possession of a long tongue\u2014has proved an entire myth.\nNumberless measurements undertaken by our leading scientific apiarians\nhave proved that the Italian bee has a tongue no longer than any other,\nalthough most are willing to concede her the possession of a very long\nand ready sting indeed. But here we do her an injustice: a pure-bred\nItalian worker-bee is as good or as bad tempered as any other of her\nspecies. It is the first crosses with the native bee which display so\nmuch vindictive aggressiveness, and have given to the whole race its\ngeneral bad name.\n\nIn the time of the great honey-flow\u2014which in southern England begins in\nMay, early or late, according to the season, and may endure for six\nweeks\u2014it is a common thing in the country to see people turn back from\nthe footpaths, running through the white-clover or sainfoin fields,\nbecause of the huge and terrifying uproar made by the foraging bees.\nWhen there is a large acreage under these crops, and the day is a fair\none, this note reaches a volume hardly to be credited as a sound of work\nand peace. It is much more like the din of a great bee-war, and it is\nsmall wonder that the stranger, unlearned in the ways of the hives,\nshould fear to go through what is very like a scene of battle and\ncarnage.\n\nAnd yet there is no time of year when the honey-bee is so little inclined\nto molest her human fellow-creatures as this. So long as the\nhoney-weather holds\u2014the warm nights when the nectar is secreted, and the\nrainless days when it can be gathered\u2014she can hardly be induced to\nattack, even if her home is being turned inside out, and the sudden\nsunlight riddling its darkness through and through.\n\nUntil within comparatively recent years it was universally believed that\nhoney was a pure, untouched secretion from the flowers; and that beyond\ngathering and storing it the bee had no part in its production. This\nidea, however, is a wholly mistaken one. Honey is a manufactured\narticle, and differs in almost every way from the raw juices obtained\nfrom the various flower-crops. The nectar of flowers, before collection\nby the bee, seems to have hardly any of the constituents of ripe honey.\nThree-quarters of its bulk consists of plain water, in which about 20 per\ncent. of cane-sugar is dissolved, the rest being made up of essential\noils and gums, which give it its distinctive flavour. But mature honey\ncontains very little water, certainly never more than a sixth part of its\nbulk. Its sugar is almost entirely grape-sugar. It is decidedly acid,\nwhile the nectar is always neutral. And the oils and aromatic principles\nof the flower juices are matured and developed into the well-known honey\nflavour, which is like nothing else in the world.\n\nIt is certain that the process of manufacture begins directly the bee\ndraws the nectar from the flower-cup. As the liquid passes into the\nhoney-sac it is mingled with the acid secretion from the gland at the\nbase of the tongue. When the bee reaches the hive she does not pour her\nburden direct into the cells, but passes it on to one of the house-bees,\nwho conveys it to the honey-vats. It is even probable that the nectar is\ntransferred a second time before it reaches the cell, although this point\nis still undecided. The effect of such transference is to add more acid\nproperties to the original juice.\n\nThe honey seems to undergo a regular brewing process within the hive. It\nis kept at a temperature of about 80\u00b0 or 85\u00b0, and it is then that the\nsurplus water passes off into vapour. In this way the raw nectar loses\nat least two-thirds of its natural bulk before it is finally converted\ninto honey. It is said that at the last moment, just before each cell is\nstopped with an impervious covering of wax, the bee turns herself about,\nand injects into the honey a drop of the poison from her sting; but there\nseems to be not the slightest evidence in support of this. The contents\nof the poison-sac are, it is true, mainly formic acid, which is a strong\npreservative; and undoubtedly traces of formic acid are to be found in\nall honeys. It has been, however, conclusively proved that this acid\nfinds its way into the honey from the glandular system of the bee, and\nnot through its sting.\n\nThe industry of the bee in nectar-gathering has always been a stock\nsubject for wonder, and it is commonly supposed that she is born with\nfull instinctive capabilities for her task. A little observation,\nhowever, soon tends to upset this theory. The work of foraging has to be\nlearnt step by step, like every other species of skilled work in\nhive-life. The young bee, setting out on her first flight, has all the\nwill to do well, and her imitative faculty is strongly developed; but she\nseems to have very little else. Her first experiences are a succession\nof blunders. She appears not to know for certain where to look for the\ncoveted sweets, and can be seen industriously searching the most unlikely\nplaces\u2014crevices in walls, tufts of grass, or the leaves of a plant\ninstead of its flowers. The fact that the nectar is hidden deep down in\nthe cup of the flower, beyond its pollen-bearing mechanism, seems to dawn\nupon her only after much thought and many fruitless essays.\n\nIt has been proved that bees will go as far as two or even three miles in\ntheir foraging journeys. The distance seems to vary according to the\nnature of the country. Bees in hilly districts appear to venture only\nshort distances from home, while in flat country the foraging flights are\nmore extended. A bee-line has become proverbial for a straight course,\nbut it is doubtful whether the bee ever makes a perfectly direct flight\nfrom point to point. The truth seems to be that there are well-defined\nair-paths out from and home to every bee-garden, and that these are\ncontinually thronged with bees going and returning throughout the working\nhours of the day. These a\u00ebrial thoroughfares lie high above all but the\ntallest obstacles, so high indeed that the keenest sight will reveal\nnothing. Only the busy song of the travellers can be heard, like a river\nof music, far overhead.\n\nIn the South Down country, where the isolated farms are each surrounded\nwith their compact acreage of blossoming sheep-feed, and there is nothing\nbut empty miles of close-cropped turf between, these bee-roads in the air\ncan be easily found and studied. Walking over the springy, undulating\ngrass in the quiet of a summer\u2019s morning, a faint, far-off note breaks\nsuddenly upon you like the twang of a harp-string high up in the blue. A\nstep or two onward and you lose it; retracing your path, it peals out\nagain. You can see nothing, strain your eyes as you will; but its cause\nis evident, and with a little trying you can presently make out the main\ndirection of the flight, and see down in the hollow far below, the\nhuddled roofs of a farmstead with a patchwork of fields about it, white\nwith clover, or rose-red with sainfoin in fullest bloom.\n\nPerhaps there is no honey in the world so fine as that to be obtained\nfrom these solitary Downland settlements. With the ordinary consumer\nhoney is merely honey, and there is an end of the matter. But the beeman\nknows that the quality of honey varies as greatly as that of wine. He\nwill tell you at first taste the crop from which it is gathered, whether\nit has one source or many, whether it is all flower-essence, or has been\ncontaminated by the hateful honeydew, which is not honey at all. Down in\nthe lowlands, except at certain rare seasons when only one crop is in\nflower, it is next to impossible to get honey absolutely from a single\nsource. But here on the hills the bees are not tempted by glowing\ngardens with their feeble, washy sweets; nor are they led aside by the\ncoarse-natured privet, or horse-chestnut, or sunflower. There is only\none trencher to their banquet, but this is a vast, illimitable one. They\nhave nothing to do but to wend out and home all day long between their\nhives and a single field.\n\nIt is difficult to gauge with anything like approximate truth the amount\nof honey that one flowering crop will yield. But probably, when all\nconditions are most favourable, every acre of Dutch clover will produce\nabout five pounds of pure honey for each day it is left standing in full\nbloom. The nectar is obviously secreted by the flower as an attraction\nto the bee, who, blundering into it with her pollen-smothered body,\nunconsciously effects its fertilisation. Directly this object is gained,\nthe flow of nectar in each particular floret appears to cease, and the\nbee passes it by.\n\nThe student of old books on apiculture is often surprised to read so much\nin praise of honeydew, while in the modern bee-garden he hears of it\nnothing but hearty condemnation. He is told that directly the bees begin\nto gather honeydew the store-racks must be removed from the hives, or the\ngood honey will be ruined both in colour and flavour. He is shown some\ndark, ill-looking, watery stuff carefully sealed up by the bees, and is\ninformed that it is nearly all honeydew. But, he asks himself, can this\nbe the same thing about which the old masters were led into such ardent\neulogy? The truth is that when ancient and medi\u00e6val writers spoke of\nhoneydew, they used the word as a general term for all that the bees\ngathered. Honey was all a dew, divinely rained down from the skies; and\nit is entirely of a piece with the all but universal lack of\nbee-knowledge down almost to the beginning of the nineteenth century,\nthat so few should have guessed that the flowers themselves had anything\nto do with the matter. Virgil and the rest of the classics held absolute\nsway over all minds pretending to the least culture, and even the\nnaturalists seem to have studied the wild life around them with no other\nobject than to force facts into line with ancient poetic fantasies. The\nold writers explained the varying qualities of honey as being due to the\ninfluence of whatever stars happened to be in the ascendant at the time\nof its gathering, and the honey was good or bad according to whether this\nwas favourable or unfavourable.\n\nThe quality and consistency of honey varies extraordinarily as between\nthe different sources of true nectar; but there is no doubt that honeydew\nwell merits the evil name it has gained with modern bee-keepers. There\nare, perhaps, three hundred distinct kinds of aphides known to English\nnaturalists, and all these eject the sweet liquid which, under certain\nconditions, bees are tempted to gather. This honeydew varies in flavour\naccording to the species of tree from whose sap it is derived. Probably\nmuch of it is only a sweet, slightly mawkish liquor, which, in its pure\nstate, combines with the genuine honey without causing noticeable\ndeterioration, at least to the unexpert taste and eye. But,\nunfortunately for bee-keepers, the oak is a great favourite with these\nparasites, no fewer than six varieties preying on this one tree alone.\nAnd oak-honeydew is a pestilent thing indeed.\n\nIt is commonly supposed that the first cold nights, that mark the\nbeginning of the end of the honey season, stimulate the production of\nhoneydew; for it is after a chilly night that bees are usually seen at\nwork on the trees where the aphides abound. A much more likely theory,\nhowever, is that the cold does not accelerate the secretion of the\nhoneydew, but cuts off the more legitimate resources of the hive just\nwhen they are in fullest activity; and so the huge armies of foragers are\nmomentarily thrown out of work, and must seek new outlets for their\nenergy. The secretion of true nectar takes place mainly at night, and\nrequires a temperature of about 70\u00b0. Anything much lower than this means\ndearth on the morrow, no matter how fine and warm the weather may then\nprove.\n\nThe dark colour of aphis-syrup\u2014a very little of which will ruin for\nmarket the finest honey\u2014seems to be due as much to foreign matter as to\nits natural evil character. There is a peculiar growth on the bark of\nmany trees where aphides congregate, which is known as soot-fungus. This\nand the honeydew get mingled together in a cimmerian slime, and, no\ndoubt, the merest trace of it would serve to darken and spoil the purest\nhoney. There seems to be no way for bee-keepers but to watch for the\nfirst chilly nights, as the honey-season draws towards its close; and\nthen to be up early and get the surplus honey-chambers off the hives,\nbefore the bees have had a chance to spoil them. But the bee is no\ndesperately early riser, for all her lofty place in the moral-maxim\nbooks. She generally waits until the morning sun has drunk up the night\ndews, and warmed the flower-calyces, before getting down to her work in\nearnest. The very early bees that may sometimes be seen winging out into\nthe first light of a summer\u2019s morning, are probably only water-carriers.\nThe water-supply is the day\u2019s first and last care with each hive in the\nbreeding season. Every bee-garden seems to have its regular\nwatering-place, generally on the oozy margin of some neighbouring pond;\nand here, in the early morning, and again towards late afternoon, the\nbees may be seen drinking in whole battalions, while the meridian hours\nof the day will find it all but deserted. Curiously, these\nwater-fetching times coincide with the times when the nectar is least\nget-atable, or when the supply is exhausted for the day; which is another\nsidelight on honey-bee economics.\n\nTo follow the bees through their honey-harvesting season is to review\nnearly the whole year\u2019s natural growth and life. In southern England the\nearliest nectar is drawn from the willows, which come into flower with\nlate March, but hold back their sweets until the first spate of fine hot\nweather comes flooding in the track of the chilly northern gales. Of\nwillow-honey there may be much or little, according to the\nnight-temperatures. Generally it goes by fits and starts. For a day or\ntwo here and there the trees may be crowded with bees, or they may be\ndeserted for weeks together. Whenever the sun shines, indeed, the trees\nthat stand up like torches of gold in the misty purple of budding woods,\nare always full of the singing multitude; but these are only the\npollen-gatherers. The nectar-bearing willows are far less showy. Their\ncatkins are small, tight-girt tassels of green, and when a warm night has\nbrought them into profit, they attract all the noisy minstrels for miles\nround. Bee-keepers generally seem to leave the willows out of their\ncalculations as a source of honey, but in riverside districts, and in\nfavourable seasons, they are not to be overlooked. It sometimes happens\nthat April comes in with a succession of mild sunny days and warm nights,\nand then the hives may suddenly overflow with willow-honey. When the\nyellow catkins fade out of sight, the willows are apt to fade out of\nmemory; and it does not seem to be commonly known that the female catkins\ncontinue to secrete abundant nectar often up to the end of May.\n\n [Picture: In the store-house: sealing up the new honey]\n\nGood honey-years are scarce under the changing English skies; yet\nNature\u2019s design for the hive-people is obviously to give an unbroken\nsuccession of honey-yielding plants throughout the whole spring and\nsummer, and pollen whenever a bright break of sunshine may lure them out\nof doors. The white-clover is seldom ready until the first week in June;\nbut, from the earliest willows in March until the last of the flowering\nseed-crops is down in late July, there is abundance of provender, if only\nthe fickle sun will do its part in the matter. The clover, as farming\ngoes nowadays, is the great main source of honey, in southern England at\nleast; but the connoisseurs are at variance as to what yields the\nabsolute perfection of honey. Scotsmen are all of one mind, for a rare\nchance, in this; and will hear of nothing but the heather, carefully\ndiscriminating between the bell-heather, which is good, and the\nling-heather, which is immeasurably better. Yet there is a honey, or\nrather a honey-blend, which far outstrips them all, though it is as rare\nand almost as priceless as the once famous Comet vintages. It is to be\nhad only when the apple-blossom and the hawthorn come into full flower\ntogether, and this is only when a chill April has delayed the one and a\nsummer-like May has forced on the other. Then, to the mellow refinement\nof the apple-nectar, is added the delicate almond flavour of the\nhawthorn, and the resulting honey is easily the finest sweetmeat in the\nworld.\n\nWonder is often expressed that one of the most generally cultivated\ncrops, the red-clover, is seldom visited by the honey-bee, although the\nbumblebees fill it with their deep trombone-music at all times of the\nday. It is true that the tongue of the hive-bee cannot reach to the\nbottom of the long red-clover calyx, but this would not deter her if the\nnectar were worth the gathering. She would cut through the petal at its\nbase, as she does with many other flowers, and so steal an effective\nmarch on her better caparisoned rival. But red-clover nectar is poor in\nconsistency and coarse of flavour. When the main crop is in flower, it\nwould yield a practically unlimited amount of honey, but this is just the\ntime when the bee can employ herself more profitably elsewhere. After\nthe red-clover has been cut, a second growth springs up, bearing\nflower-tubes less developed, and therefore shorter than those of the\nfirst crop. But now other and better sources of supply are rapidly\nfailing. The bee\u2014for whom, in prosperous times, nothing but the best is\ngood enough\u2014must revise her tastes to meet her necessities. At this time\nshe is as busy as the rest in the red-clover fields. And when her\nclearer, sweeter note is heard there, mingling its contralto with the\nhoarser music of the bumblebee, it is a token that the heyday of the year\nis past: the honey-chambers must be taken off the hives without delay.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\nTHE DRONE AND HIS STORY\n\n\nIT is true that all bee-keepers are enthusiasts, and true that long years\nspent in the companionship of the hives invariably create a fearless\nfellowship, a prime understanding between the bee-master and his legions.\nBut it is equally true that the longer you study the nature of the\nhoney-bee, the less enamoured you become of certain of her ways.\n\nIn the minds of old beemen there grows up, as the years glide, a sort of\nawe of her. She is so manifestly a power, supreme in her little world.\nShe is so courageous, resourceful, brainy. All the weaknesses and\ncompromises, and most of the pleasures, have long ago been driven out of\nher life, seemingly by her own act and will; yet, in doing this, she has\nbut refined the science of citizenship to its pure elements. Her entire\nunselfishness, her readiness to sacrifice her individual good for the\ngood of the State, are as unquestionable as they are changeless. The\nhive-polity, taken as a whole, is so admirable, and compares so\nadvantageously with certain human efforts in the same way, that you are\napt to exalt all her qualities into virtues; and to conclude that a\nfar-seeing, wise benevolence must have gone to the making of the perfect\nBee-State, instead of the cold, undeviating logic that alone has\nfashioned it.\n\nThis remorseless smelting-down of life into the set moulds of principle,\nwithout mercy and without reproach, has a cumulative effect on the mind\nof the observer; and sooner or later, though he will early lose his fear\nof her sting, he will develop a very real, but vague, awe of the\nhoney-bee in another way.\n\nJust as Moses Rusden, the King\u2019s bee-master, held up the life of the hive\nas Nature\u2019s evidence of the Divine will in earthly monarchy, so the\nlatter-day student is often constrained to ask himself whether the\nbee-commonwealth does not point an authoritative moral in another way.\nHere is a State\u2014only a mimic one, but still not a negligible\nexample\u2014where several of the most fiercely-debated questions of modern\nhuman life are seen in long adopted and perfected working-order, and seen\nin their fullness of result. Any attempt at a serious comparison between\nmen and women, and the drone and worker-bee, would justly lay the writer\nopen to the charge of grotesque trifling; but there is more than a\nfanciful analogy between the principles on which all civilisations must\nbe based, whether they are insect or human. It cannot be denied that the\ncommunal life of the honey-bee is a high civilisation; that it has grown\nto be what it is to-day through ages of necessity; that the one sex has\nthe other under a complete and terrible subjection, for which, and for\nthe privilege of all power, the dominant sex has paid a terrible price.\n\nThe worker-bee to-day is an over-intellectual, neurotic, morbidly dutiful\ncreature, while the drone is admittedly nothing but a stupid, happy,\nsensual lout. If the extreme difference between the sexes in bee-life\nhad been aboriginal, the relations of drone and worker, as we see them in\nthe hives to-day, would be meet and reasonable enough; but there seems to\nbe clear evidence that, far back in the life of the race, the female bee\nwas not so hopelessly superior to her mate. The queen-bee, in all\nlikelihood, fairly represents the mother-bee as she was before the\ncooling crust of the earth made some sort of protected habitation\nnecessary, which led first to close clustering for mutual warmth, and\nthen gradually developed the complicated hive-life of to-day. But\nevolution will hardly account for all that we see: revolution must have\nhad its part in the production of the modern self-unsexed worker. It has\nbeen seen that there is no physiological reason why each worker in the\nhive should not have grown into the fertile mother of thousands. The\nworkers are not a stunted, specialised race, slowly evolved by time and\nnecessity, and procreating their own stunted kind; but each worker is\ndeliberately manufactured to a set pattern by the authorities in the\nhive, obedient to the call of the State. And when did the female bees\nbegin this tampering with the springs of life, this improving upon\nCreation, which was the first vital step, failing which the present\nbee-commonwealth had been impossible? It looks very like a superb act of\ngeneralship in the great prim\u00e6val war of sex\u2014a brilliant piece of\nstrategy that gave victory at a blow, and rendered the after-steps in the\nscheme of conquest a matter of logical sequence.\n\nThe whole question of the artificial production of the worker-bee is\nsurrounded with difficulties; and it seems possible, on our present level\nof knowledge, to do little more than state the facts, and there leave\nthem. The supremacy of the females in hive-life appears to have dated\nfrom the time that the vast majority deprived themselves, or were\ndeprived by their immediate ancestors, of their share in procreation, and\nthe ovipositor discovered itself as a weapon of offence and defence.\nBefore the worker-bees existed as an armed force, there is no reason to\nsuppose that the female bee had a great physical advantage over the\ndrone. The queen-bee\u2019s propensity to thrust her ovipositor into the\nspiracles of her rival, and so effectually to despatch her, as well as\nher inveterate hatred of her kind, may both be late developments, due to\nthe isolated, artificial life she now leads. While the worker is ever\nready with her sting, the queen uses it so rarely that many old\nexperienced bee-keepers of the present time deny her altogether the power\nof stinging. A much more natural tendency with her is to bite; and when\nit comes to the use of the sharp, strong, sidelong jaws, the drone has a\nmore redoubtable equipment than any, although he has apparently lost the\nwill and sense to use it.\n\nWhatever the drone may have been in far-off ages, the worker-bees have\nhim now well under the iron heel of matriarchal expediency; and they see\nto it that he shall be fit only for the one indispensable office,\nalthough in that regard they exhaust every ingenuity to make him all that\nhis kind should be. It is plain they would do without him altogether if\nthat were possible. As it is, for nine months in the year there are no\ndrones at all, and then only a few hundreds are raised in each hive\u2014the\nbare minimum that will ensure the successful mating of the young queens\nwhen the summer sunshine calls them to their wooing. It might be\nsupposed that where there are comparatively so few queens to be\nfertilised\u2014only two or three at most from each hive, and these only once\nin a lifetime\u2014that even those drones which are now tolerated are in\nexcess of the number required. But a cardinal principle in bee-life is\nthat the young queens shall choose their mates from another tribe, and so\nensure a continual influx of new blood to the colony. This can only be\neffected out-of-doors, and as far as possible from the parent hive. The\nstrongest impulse, therefore, of the virgin-queen, when she goes off on\nher mating-flight, is to get away quickly from her home surroundings.\nShe flies straight off at tremendous speed, and thus has every chance of\ngetting unperceived into new country, and so into the reconnoitring\nground of strange drones.\n\nAnother reason for her extended flight and its remarkable pace is that\nonly the strongest and swiftest drone of all the pursuing multitude is\nlikely to overtake her, and this again makes for the betterment of the\nrace. Perhaps there is no parallel instance in nature where the\nselection of the fittest individuals to continue a species is so\ncarefully provided for, and no doubt this accounts for the high place of\nthe honey-bee in the scale of created things. But this scheme involves\nenormous risk to the young queen. A hundred dangers lurk on her path.\nShe is a tempting morsel for every bird that throngs the air of the June\nmorning. Her untried wings may fail her. Even if she gets back safely\nto the bee-garden, she may enter the wrong hive, to her instant\ndestruction. But she must take her chance of all risks; and the only\nthing to do is to render her absence from home as brief as may be, and\nher fertilisation as sure, by making the wandering drone-population large\nenough to cover all probable ranges of flight.\n\nFrom the very first the drone is nurtured in a different way from the\nworker-bee. The egg is laid in a wider and deeper cell; and during its\nfirst three days of life the drone-larva is fed with bee-milk, probably\nof a special kind and certainly of more generous quantity. After the\nthird day this chyle-food is reduced, as is the case with the\nworker-grub; but while the worker is then given only honey, it is certain\nthat the drone-larva receives both honey and pollen, and that for a full\nday longer. In all, it takes about twenty-four or twenty-five days to\nproduce the perfect drone-bee, as against an average twenty-one days for\nthe worker. The queen-bee, as has been already seen, is developed in\nmuch less time than either, little more than a fortnight elapsing between\nthe time the egg is laid and the time she is ready to gnaw her way out of\nthe cell.\n\nAfter the drone is hatched, it will be another two weeks or so before he\nmakes his first venture in the open air. All this time he has the free\nrun of the larder, and steadily gorges himself on honey when he is not\nsleeping off the effects of his surfeit in some snug, out-of-the-way\ncorner of the hive. But honey is not his only, or even his principal,\nfood. Throughout his whole life he is constantly fed by the house-bees\nwith the rich chyle-food given to him as a larva, and it has been proved\nthat if this is withheld from him for the space of three days he will die\nof starvation, even in the midst of abundant honey. Thus the worker-bees\nhave him completely in their power.\n\nThe first flight of the drones is a stirring event in the bee-garden.\nThe common sound of the hives goes on practically the whole year through.\nEvery sunny midday, when the temperature mounts to 45\u00b0 or 50\u00b0, will see\neach hive the centre of a little galaxy of singers: it is only the volume\nof the music that varies with the waxing or waning days. But with the\ncoming of the drones the whole symphony of the bee-garden abruptly\nchanges. They never move from their snug indoor quarters until the day\nis wearing on towards noon, and then only in the brightest weather.\nBlundering aggressively through the crowd of busy foragers, they rise\nheavily on the wing, and soon the ordinary note of the garden is drowned\nin the new uproar. They seem to come almost simultaneously from all\nhives at once. For a minute or two the rich, hoarse melody holds the\nair; and then, almost as suddenly, it dies away, as these roystering\nne\u2019er-do-wells troop off over hill and dale, each to his favourite\nhunting-ground.\n\nThere is great divergence of opinion as to the limits of flight of the\ndrone, but probably he goes farther and faster than any have yet\ncredited. His magnificent stretch and strength of wing mark him for a\nflier. He is all brute force and lusty energy; and it would be strange\nif, with but one thing to do in life\u2014to gad about in search of amorous\nadventure\u2014he could not do it to a purpose. If a hive of bees be removed\nto a distance in the height of the season, some of both workers and\ndrones are sure to find their way back to the old spot. This has\nconstantly taken place when hives have been carried no farther than two\nmiles. But in one case, when the distance was more than twice as much,\nno workers were seen round the old hive-station, yet a little company of\ndrones was winging aimlessly about the tenantless stool, and there can be\nlittle doubt that these belonged to the removed colony. It is not\nsuggested that they deliberately travelled all these miles. The chances\nare that, in their daily flight, they got so far away from the new\nstation that they came within the zone of old landmarks, and thus\nnaturally went on by the long-accustomed ways.\n\nAs a typical instance of a sluggard and idler, the drone-bee has enjoyed\na vogue in the preparatory-school books for ages past. But, whatever his\nprim\u00e6val equipment for usefulness may have been, it is evident now that\nhe could not labour if he would. Physically, in all points but that of\nmuscle, as well as mentally, he has become degraded to the inferior of\nthe worker-bee in every way. He is destitute of all those special\ncontrivances with which she is so amply furnished. He has no baskets for\npollen-carrying, nor any of the ingenious brushes and combs which she\nuses to scrape the pollen from herself and others. He has neither\nwax-generating organs, nor leg-pincers to deal with wax. His tongue is\ntoo short for honey-getting. His brain is much smaller than even that of\nthe feeble-minded queen. The intricate gland-systems, which play so\nimportant a role in the daily life of the worker, are either completely\natrophied in the drone or exist only in an elementary state. While it\nhas been the communal will of the hive that the worker-bee should develop\nan amazing proficiency of mind and body, the same forces have been\nsteadily at work to degrade the male-bee into a creature of dependence,\ngradually training out of him all initiative and idea, except in the one\ndirection. Just as in the case of the queen and the worker, drone and\nworker-bee seem hardly to belong to the same race.\n\nAnd yet, for all his frank incapabilities and lack of ideals, the drone\noffers, in one respect, a refreshing contrast to his sour, stern,\nduty-worshipping sister. He is a life-long, incorrigible optimist. He\nfiddles gaily while the city burns. All his misery and mourning would\nnot serve to quench a single spark of it; so he eats, drinks, and is\nmerry, with the intuition of all drones that Nemesis waits on the morrow\nwith something disagreeable. It is impossible to study his ways for long\nwithout recognising the spirit of rude jollity and horse-play that\nthoroughly pervades all he does. In and out of the hive he blusters,\ncannoning roughly against all he meets, and raising his burly, bullying\nsong in the air as a sort of protest against all this anxious industry\ngoing on about him. Once gone from the neighbourhood of the hive, he\nseems to keep incessantly on the wing until hunger prompts him home\nagain. For no one has ever seen a drone-bee among the insects that haunt\nthe flowers, nor ever seen him basking on a sunlit wall or tree-trunk,\nafter the kind of almost every other winged atom in the universe.\n\nHe comes back to the hive with the same noisy, careless fanfaronade, and\nis received by the workers with the same sullen indifference. They give\nhim his fill of bee-milk, linking tongues with him as he sits up like an\novergrown baby, voracious, clamouring to be fed. They suffer him to\nswill at the honey-stores unchecked, but plainly regard him with\ncontumely. He is a terrible expense to the State, yet a necessary one.\nSilently they go about their uncongenial business of nourishing\nhim\u2014silently, and with an ominous patience. They grudge him every drop,\nand, all the more, urge him to his excesses. It is not for long. The\nday of reckoning is near at hand. Already the poppies glow scarlet on\nthe hill\u2014the poppies that mark the turning-point of the summer; and after\nthem the long decline, with its ever-diminishing sun-glow; each day with\na scantier meed of blossom, until the path runs again into the dreary\nlevels, the sober greys and russets, of winter death.\n\nNow the worker-bee is to show a grizzly seam in her nature, matching ill\nwith the fine hues and qualities of mind for which she is so justly\nfamed. And that she is not all lovable, all admirable, accounts for the\nexceeding love of her that moves the hearts of men who know her through\nand through. The story of the massacre of the drones has hardly a\nparallel for sheer relentless ferocity\u2014unrecking abandonment to a\nvengeance long withheld for expediency\u2019s sake. There come the first\nchill nights of mid-July, and the honey-flow is suddenly at an end. The\nclover and sainfoin have already fallen to the sickle. Nothing but the\nbravest warmth and exuberance of the summer could now withstand the drain\nof the myriad honey-makers, and a few hours\u2019 cold dams up at once the\nattenuated stream. The time of prosperity is over. There will be no\nmore abundance of honey. It remains for the genius of hive-economy to\nprove how much of what has been gathered can be preserved for future\nneeds.\n\nThe first sign of the _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_ is the throwing out at the hive entrance\nof certain pale, gruesome objects\u2014the corpses of immature drones, not\ndead from mischance, but ruthlessly torn from their cells. This may go\non intermittently for many days, and while the fell work is proceeding\nthe living drones seem to take no warning. They keep up their merry\nround; the unending feast riots forward; daily the bee-garden is filled\nwith their careless, overweening song. And then at last the signal for\nthe slaughter is given. Within each hive a curious sobbing outcry\nbegins\u2014a cry that is nothing but sheer terror put into sound. The drones\nno longer lie in easy ranks between the combs, placidly sleeping off one\ndebauch and dreaming of another. They are all awake now, and fleeing\nabjectly for their lives through the narrow ways of the bee-city, the\nworkers in hot pursuit.\n\nThe deep, vibrant, horror-laden note increases hour by hour. As each\nexecutioner overtakes her victim, she grips him by the base of the wing;\nand, helped by others all alike infuriate at the work, she half drags,\nhalf pushes him through the throng, until she has him in the light of\nday, and tumbles with him to the ground; he for ever fighting and\nstruggling, and uttering that frenzied note of fear; she savagely gnawing\nat the wing until it is disabled, and he can never more return to the\nhive. Many of the strongest drones escape from their persecutors for the\ntime being, and fly away unhurt. But it is only for a few hours. Hunger\nis sure to bring them back to the hive, when the waiting guards fall upon\nthem, and maim or drive them off once more. It is specially to be marked\nthat the bees never sting the drones at this great annual feast of\ncarnage. There is that much method in the madness which has seized upon\nthem; for, in the rough-and-tumble of such a conflict, stings would be\nplucked out by the roots, and thus valuable lives would go down with the\nworthless. The sole object seems to be to rid the hives as effectively\nas possible of the presence of the drones; and the disablement of one\nwing appears to be all that is necessary, and therefore all for which the\ndeft assassin strives.\n\nWith some bee-races the massacre of the drones is carried through in an\nincredibly short space of time; with others the agony of the thing is\ndrawn out for days together. The wretched sires of the hive are caught\nbetween two evils, each as fatal as the other. If they fly off to the\nfields, starvation and the night-chills will swiftly bring about their\nend. If they return to the hive, a still speedier death awaits them.\nNight and day, at this time, the guard-bees are doubled and re-doubled at\nthe city-gates; and there is little chance of the wiliest drone\noutwitting them. But he usually takes the home-hazard; and sooner or\nlater comes blundering in, receiving with open arms, as it were, his\nshare of the knife, as Huddlestone faced the Carbonari.\n\nAll this is the common way with the bee-republic, when the season goes as\nit should; and the hive is in possession of a mother-bee\u2014young, strong,\nand of proved fecundity. But there are times when the drones\u2014for all\ntheir great expense and drain on the wealth of the colony\u2014are suffered to\nlive on until the late autumn, or even to remain unmolested throughout\nthe winter and following spring. If the bee-master sees drones about a\nhive, when other colonies have long ago made a good riddance of them, he\nwell knows what ails the stock. Its queen is old and failing; and these\nastute amazons have given reprieve to their male-kind until a new\nmother-bee can be raised and properly mated. It is a case of mercy to\nthe drones tempered with so much justice to themselves that the original\nvirtue is largely discounted.\n\nAnd where the drones are carried through the winter, it is ever a sign\nthat the hive is not only without a queen, but never will contrive one,\nof their own race. Yet they know that, in the preservation of the\ndrones, they have at least one indispensable element for their salvation,\nand\u2014who shall gainsay it of the sovereign honey-bee?\u2014perhaps they rely on\nthe bee-master to guess their plight, and furnish them with another\nqueen, in time to save his property from extinction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\nAFTER THE FEAST\n\n\nAS the year grows in the bee-garden, so it goes, with all but\nimperceptible tread and tread. In southern England, after the seed-hay\nis down, there is little more for the bees to do but prepare their hives\nfor the coming winter. The queen is slowly weaned from her absorption in\negg-laying by a gradual change in food. Day by day she receives less of\nthe mysterious bee-milk which was her urging and inspiration; day after\nday she finds herself the more constrained to slake her hunger at the\nopen honey-cells with the common crowd. Every day sees fewer\nbee-children born to the hive, and every day sees more and more of the\nold workers\u2014worn out with a short six weeks or so of summer toil\u2014pass\naway in that inexplicable fashion, using, perchance, their last strength\nof wing to hie them to the traditional graveyard of their kind. What\nbecomes of them all, not the wisest among beemen knows; but it is certain\nthat, as they lived by communal principle, in the same faith they die;\nand their last act may be the truly collective one\u2014of removing their own\nbodies out of the way of harm to the cherished State.\n\n [Picture: Queen bee in off season, showing that the workers pay her no\n special attention when she is not required to lay]\n\nWith the waning months, the population of the hive decreases visibly,\nand, as their numbers fail, the temper of the bees suffers just as\nevident a change. Old bee-keepers know by sharp experience that early\nautumn is a time when vigilance well repays itself. For all life the\nseason of autumn has its peculiar tests and trials of character; and this\nis especially true with regard to the honey-bee. Each strain of bees has\nits proclivities, good or bad, which are sure to come to the front at\nthis season. And, more than any, bad qualities will show themselves, now\nthat the rush of the year\u2019s work is over, and the common energy must take\nits course through an ever shallowing and straitening way.\n\nTo find rank dishonesty in a creature of so small account in creation as\nan insect, is rather startling to old-fashioned ideas; but it is\nnevertheless beyond dispute that some stocks of bees are prone to develop\na tendency to housebreaking and robbery of their neighbour\u2019s goods during\nearly autumn, and, in a lesser degree, when the first scanty supply of\nnectar begins in early spring.\n\nVirgil, and almost all the classic writers, give stirring accounts of the\nfrequent battles among bees in their day. We are told of vast conflicts\ntaking place in mid-air, of the kings leading forth their hosts of\nwarriors\u2014the din of carnage\u2014the wounded and dying falling like rain out\nof the blue of the summer sky. These descriptions have always been a\ngreat puzzle to modern students of bee-life, because nothing of the kind\nseems to take place at the present day. Each hive goes about its\nbusiness, apparently in complete disregard of the existence of other\nhives. Neither at home, nor abroad in the fields, are reprisals ever\nwitnessed among bees, whether singly or collectively. The most peaceable\ncreature in the world is the honey-bee, except in the single case when\nher home is being wantonly assailed.\n\nBut in autumn frequent encounters take place between robber-bees and the\nhive they are attacking, and one is constrained to believe that it is of\nthis Virgil writes.\n\nPerhaps when once a stock has discovered that stealing honey is a much\nquicker and easier method of obtaining it than by the laborious process\nof gathering, these particular bees will never again be won back to\nhonest courses. Not only will the parent hive continue to break out in\nthis way at the close of every season, but all swarms from the same hive\nare certain to develop the like tendencies. The strain will be a\ncontinual source of annoyance and loss to the bee-master, and, if he be\nwise, he will take the shortest and surest way of putting an end to the\ntrouble, by promptly changing the queen, and thus in the end\nexterminating the original stock. Where this is in his own garden, there\nwill be no difficulty in the matter; but often the robbers are wild bees,\nbrigands inhabiting a hollow tree in some neighbouring wood, and making\nsudden raids upon their law-abiding neighbours in adjacent villages,\nafter the manner of brigands all the world over. The strangers have\noften a peculiar appearance, which singles them out immediately from the\nlegitimate members of the gardens. They are darker in colour and\nshinier; and they have a bold, yet furtive, way of getting about, which\nsuggests at once the prowling marauder.\n\nWandering among the hives on a fine September morning, several of these\nlight-fingered, sinister folk may be seen hovering about the entrance to\na hive, or trying to creep in unobserved. Their presence is promptly\ndetected, and a sudden hubbub arises as the guard-bees set upon the\nintruders and drive them off. There is no doubt of their intention.\nThey are spies from the robber camp, and their object is to discover\nthose hives which are weak in population, and so will fall the easier\nprey to the depredators when in force. Strong stocks have little to fear\nfrom robbers; they can always hold their own against attack, and\ntherefore are seldom molested.\n\nThese scouts disappear for a time, and the hive settles down to its\nwonted, busy tranquillity. But soon a little blur of bees may be seen\ncoming over the hedge-top, and making straight for the selected hive.\nThere is no more crafty reconnoitring. It is to be battle undisguised.\nThe robbers descend upon their prey, and at once a terrific uproar\nbegins, a desperate hand-to-hand fight between besiegers and besieged.\nLeft to themselves, the weak stock will have little chance from the\noutset. It is quickly overcome. And then a curious thing often happens.\nThe bees of the home-colony which have survived the fight, join forces\nwith the victors, and themselves help to rifle and carry away to the\nrobbers\u2019 lair the treasure which is their own by right. Luckily, the\nbee-master has an all but unfailing preventive of this vexatious trouble\nready to his hand. He can safely leave all those hives which are\nnumerically strong of citizens to take care of themselves, and those\nwhich are weak of population he can join together in twos or threes,\nconverting them also into strong, self-protective colonies. The modern\nmovable-comb hive is a power in the hands of the capable beeman, for the\ncomb-frames from several hives can be placed together in one, and the\nbees will unite quite peaceably at this season, if all are well dusted\nwith a flour-dredger, or treated with a scent-spray, so that in odour and\nappearance they may be alike. Probably every hive has its own distinct\nodour, which is shared by all its denizens, and this is no doubt the\nmeans by which the sentinel bees at the entrance recognise their own\ncomrades, while they promptly fall upon all interloping strangers.\n\nThe preparation of the hive for the winter is of a piece with all else\nthat the bee undertakes. As the area of the brood-nest shrinks, the\nempty cells are filled with honey, this being brought down from the\nstore-cells farthest away. The foragers keep steadily at work whenever\nthe weather holds, gathering up the remnants of the feast and bringing\nthem home to swell the winter-larder. Where there is much ivy, a fine\nOctober will often see the hives as busy again as ever they were in the\nbravest days of June; but the throng of bees is manifestly smaller. The\nrich song of life begins later in the day, and lasts only during the\nbrightest hours; and that wonderful night-sound, the deep underground\nthunder of the fanning bees, is gone from the bee-garden, just as the\nscent of the clover-nectar, brewing and steaming in the hives, no longer\ndrifts across in the darkness, filling the bee-master\u2019s house with the\nfragrance he loves more than all else in the world.\n\nThe old ragged-winged bees, that have stood the brunt of the season, are\nnow, too, nearly all gone. The hives are filled with bees of the same\nrace, inspired by the same traditions; but they are at the beginning of\nlife, the raw recruits of destiny, a mere stop-gap crew. They have no\nmemories of the time when work was a fever, a tumultuous race with the\nsun, in which the swiftest must lag behind. They have never known the\nover-weighty cargoes, the bursting honey-sacs, and pollen-panniers so\nladen that they could be scarce dragged into the hive, and they will\nnever know them. These bees, born late in the season, have their lot\ncast in the torpid backwaters of their little world. Theirs is to be but\na dreary eking out of days, so that they may have strength enough to warm\nthe first spring broods into life. The few hot days that burn in the\nmidst of the snows of each English March\u2014immeasurably far off now, and\nunattainable, seemingly\u2014will be all they will ever see of the power of\nsunshine. Winter bees are born to the prison-house; and in it, and for\nit, live and die.\n\nAt the most, a worker-bee sees but six months of life: at the least\u2014and\nthis is the lot of many\u2014she withstands the incessant wear and tear of her\nhard calling for six, or possibly eight, weeks. Thus, though the hive\nmay be always packed with citizens, the population is for ever changing.\nHalf a dozen times in the year, perhaps, and for a score of years, you\nmay go to your bee-garden, and each time move among tens of thousands to\nwhom you are an utter stranger, and whom you have never seen before. And\nyet, in all its customs, its propensities, its traditions, the life of\nthe bees is Continuity impersonified. You may go round the world, and\nspend ten years on the journey; and, coming back to the old leafy nook of\nthe country, find the old green hive still in its corner under the lilac,\nstill the centre of what seems the same crowd of winged merchant-women\nsailing home under the same gay colours, singing the old glad songs,\nbuilding the old wondrous fabrics in the darkness, transmuting the same\nfragrant essences into the same elixir of gold. And what is this\nmysterious thing called the Bee-Commonwealth, which is alone immortal,\nwhile all that composes it, and pertains to it, and upholds it, passes\nand dies?\n\nYou must not forget the queen-bee here. She alone, it must be\nremembered, persists year in and year out, while generation after\ngeneration of her children grow up and die about her\u2014a hundred thousand\nof them, may-be, in each twelve-month, thousands even between one single\nsummer dawn and the dusk of the western sky. Methuselah of old, on the\nmore moderate human scale, must have had some such experience\u2014must have\ndivined the broader plan of life from the incessant repetitions of chance\nand change that passed before him. The power to generalise into symbols\ncomes only to the ancient of days; and he of all men had learnt to\nfathom, to estimate, to winnow out the sober drab grain from the\nglittering, rainbow chaff of life. Over and over again he must have kept\nthe true true to itself with one wise word, and turned back the false,\ndazzled and discomfited, with one flash from his mirror of the ages. He\nwas a living history-book, where all men might read the common drift and\noutcome of life; and as a record of the hive\u2019s story, a living archive\nfor its plans, its systems, its ideals, the mother-bee may exist to\nday\u2014she who, in comparison with its ever coming and going thousands, is\nan age-old, imperishable thing.\n\nAnd so you may think of her, in the short days of December twilight, or\nin the interminable night-darkness full of the raging of the winter wind,\ngathering her children about her, and telling them tales of their\nforbears\u2019 prowess; teaching them old bee-songs which have but the one\nrefrain of work and winning; and never forgetting her own little story\u2014of\nthe one brief hour of her love-flight and marriage, bought and paid for\nby widowhood lasting her whole life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\nTHE MODERN BEE-FARM\n\n\nIT is well enough to consider the scientific side of hive-life for its\nintrinsic interest, to treat it for what it really is\u2014one of the most\nabsorbing studies available for leisure hours. But the honey-bee is\nsomething more than a wonder-maker, or a peg on which to hang dilettante\nmoralisms. Rightly treated and exactly understood, she can be made of\ngreat use in the world.\n\nThere are two things in this England of ours which profoundly astonish\nall who love bees, and have a true conception of their possibilities.\nTravel where you may in the land, the last thing you are likely to meet\nwith is a bee-farm, or even a few hives in a cottage-garden; while every\nyard of your way has its nook of blossom, and every mile its stretch of\nflowery pasture, where, in sober truth, tons of honey are annually\nrunning to waste. All this could be garnered and sold to the people at\nlittle trouble and great profit, if only enterprise would wake up from\nits island-lethargy and stretch forth the hand. But the years dribble\nuselessly by, and nothing is done. Here and there a wide-awake\nhusbandman gets a little township of hives together, sells in the\nneighbourhood all the honey his bees make, and puts to his pocket a gold\nand silver lining. But this is only a drop in the ocean, and the British\npeople must send abroad for their honey, which they do to the pretty tune\nof more than \u00a330,000 a year.\n\nHitherto, reasoning backward from effect to cause, it would seem that\nfarming has been remunerative only when undertaken on a large scale; but\nthose who can read the signs of the times tell us that the age, just\ndawning to the country-side, will be the age of the small man. And this\nmust mean that the hereditary aristocracy among crops\u2014wheat, oats,\nbarley\u2014will slowly give place to little-culture: in a word, that the land\nwill be made to produce, not the things that tradition and our yeoman\nfamily pride have ordained as the be-all and end-all of farming, but the\nminor, humble necessities for which each town and village should look to\nthe good brown earth immediately about it, but at present looks in vain.\nFarmers\u2019 ladies may then no longer sit in their drawing-rooms and ride in\ntheir carriages, but that will be a change for the simpler, more\nproportionate. Those who live in towns have little conception of it; but\nthe country-dweller knows well what complexity and luxury have got into\nthe old English farmhouses, for all the outcry about hard times; how the\nfarmer\u2019s wife no longer goes to her dairy, nor makes any of the good old\nfarmhouse things that served to uphold country England in days gone by;\nand how the master-agriculturists now are the sinews of the great London\nStores, while the little local shopkeepers are left to the field-labourer\nwith his twelve or fifteen shillings a week.\n\nFor the class of small-holders that must now multiply throughout the\nlength and breadth of the land, there is awaiting an enterprise\u2014a source\nof livelihood\u2014as yet hardly tapped. A stock subject of envy with most\nartisans is the capitalist who leads an easy life while his factory hands\ntoil for him. But if the small-holder will take up bee-keeping, he too\ncan look on, to a large extent, while his thousands of winged labourers\nare filling his storehouse with some of the most useful and saleable\nmerchandise in the world. It is a truism in commerce that a good supply\ncreates a demand just as certainly as that the universal want of a thing\nstimulates its production. One of the needs in England to-day is a full,\ngood, and cheap supply of honey; and when this is forthcoming there will\nbe little fear but that the present demand will increase hand over hand.\n\nThere are many reasons why the people should choose honey for their\nprincipal food rather than the beet sugar which is now so largely\nconsumed. In the first place, honey is a pure, natural, undoctored\nsweet, while in the manufacture of ordinary sugar the use of more or less\nnoxious chemicals seems to be indispensable. When a stock of bees must\nbe artificially fed, and common grocers\u2019 sugar is used for the purpose,\nthe result is generally that half the stock is poisoned by the chemicals\nwith which the sugar has been treated at the mill. And if this is its\neffect on bees, the inference must be that it cannot prove altogether\nwholesome for men. But its purity is not the chief reason why honey\nshould be the universal sweet-food of the people. Honey is the ordinary\nsugar of nectar concentrated and converted into what is chemically known\nas grape-sugar; and thus, in ripe honey, the first and most important\npart of digestion is already effected before it leaves the comb. This\nexplains why so many delicate people, and particularly children, can\nassimilate food sweetened with honey, when they can take no other form of\nsweet.\n\nDoctors are continually finding some new virtue in honey. Its gently\nregulating action has been long known, and there is good authority for\nstating that there is not an organ in the human body which does not\nbenefit from its habitual use. In all wasting diseases, and triumphantly\nin consumption, it will prevail as an up-builder when everything else\nfails. There is no doubt at all that cases of consumption have been\nentirely cured by a liberal diet of honey; and, notoriously, honey is the\nmain ingredient in nearly all patent medicines for diseases of the chest\nand throat. Therapeutic hints from laymen are generally looked upon\naskance by medical men\u2014at least, by those of the old-fashioned type; yet,\non the chance that this page may come under the eye of some of the more\nelastic-minded, the thing may be hazarded. There are many who believe in\nit, and with good reason, as a sovereign specific where the disease is a\nwasting one. It is nothing else than the once famous Athole Brose,\nwhich, as all Scottish bee-keepers know, consist of equal parts of good\nthick honey, preferably from ling-heather, and of cream, and of mature\nScotch whisky from the pot-still. Little and often is the rule for its\nadministration, but, unlike most old wife\u2019s remedies, faith has nothing\nto do with its wonder-working. Scepticism is a soil in which it seems to\nflourish as well as any.\n\nThe man of business, resolved to take up bee-keeping as a livelihood,\nmust, at the outset, decide on what scale he will carry the matter\nthrough. There are two aspects of the thing, each more alluring than the\nother, according to the temperament and point of view. There is the\nSimple Life and the bee-garden\u2014a life spent in the green quiet of an\nEnglish village, within reach of a market town, where the produce of the\nhives may be disposed of. And there is the greater enterprise, the\nfoundation of a bee-farm on an extensive scale, and on the most approved\nscientific principles, where the object is to supply the great central\nmarkets at a distance rather than the immediate local needs.\n\nIn the establishment of a bee-farm the first care must be the choice of a\nsuitable district. The nature of the surrounding country must largely\ngovern the systems on which the farm can be most profitably worked. The\nfirst maxim in successful beemanship is to get all hives filled to the\nbrim with worker-bees by the time the great honey-flow sets in. This\ntime, however, varies according to the district. In the orchard-country\nwe need bees early; in heather-districts we want them late. In\nsouth-west England, where the country is half fruit-ground and half\nmoorland, the hives must be huge in population both late and early. But\nwhere the bee-keeper follows the sheep-farmer\u2014and there is no better\nguide to honey than the sheep\u2014his true policy is to work his colonies\nslowly and steadily up to their greatest strength by the time the main\nfeed-crops come into blossom, which is seldom before the middle of May.\nAnd all these considerations land us on the brink of a very vexed\nquestion in modern bee-craft\u2014whether bees should be artificially fed, and\nif so, how and when?\n\nIf only the purest cane-sugar is used, and the syrup well boiled and\nnever burnt, there is nothing to say against the practice on the score of\nharm to the stocks. Where early bees are wanted, it is absolutely\nnecessary to give them a continuous supply of sugar-syrup from the first\nmoment that breeding commences in the hives. Chemically, the sweet\nconstituent in nectar is almost identical with that from the sugar-cane;\nand sugar-syrup has this advantage over honey given\u2014that it more nearly\nsimulates the natural flow. The bees responsible for the nursery-work in\nthe hive and the regulation of the queen\u2019s fecundity, are young bees that\nhave never yet flown. They can, therefore, only judge of the progress of\nthe season by the amount of nectar and pollen coming into the hive.\nWhere this is steadily increasing day by day\u2014and it is this regular\nnatural progress in prosperity which the bee-keeper must strive to\nimitate in artificial feeding\u2014the nurse-bees gain confidence, and\nbrood-raising forges rapidly ahead.\n\nBut sugar-syrup and pea-flour are not natural foods for bees, and there\nis little doubt that a prolonged course of such diet tends to lower the\ntone and stamina of the race, and thus may prepare the way for disease.\nThe golden rule in the matter seems to be that artificial feeding should\nbe resorted to only where strength of stocks is necessary, to secure the\nharvest, or where actual starvation threatens. In purely\nheather-districts, when the big population is quite early enough if it is\nto hand in late June, nothing short of imminent starvation should induce\nthe bee-master to give artificial, and therefore unavoidably inferior,\nfood. In sheep-country the same rule holds. Except in the most\nunfavourable years, a hive, headed by a young and vigorous queen, can be\nrelied upon to get itself into the finest fettle by the time the main\ncrops are ready for exploitation. In this case the beeman has only to\nmake certain from time to time that no stock is in absolute want of the\nordinary means of subsistence.\n\nBut in those warm, favoured regions of the south-west, the lands of the\napple-blossom and the heather, where there is a very early and a very\nlate harvest to be gathered, a different system must be pursued. Here we\ntouch on the second grand principle of successful bee-keeping\u2014the\nnecessity for having in all hives only the most prolific mother-bees.\nFor profitable honey-getting a queen should seldom be kept beyond her\nsecond year. After that she is usually of little account, and should be\nsuperseded, either by the bee-master or the bees. But where a queen has\nbeen over-stimulated by feeding to raise an immense population in the\nspring of the year, she is rarely capable of another supreme effort in\nthe autumn. The best policy, therefore, if the heather-harvest is an\nimportant one, is to remove the old queens as soon as the spring work is\nover, and to substitute for them queens that are in their best season,\nbut at the beginning of their resources instead of at the end. In this\nway another huge army of workers is soon born to the hive, and the double\nharvest is secured.\n\n [Picture: Hiving a swarm]\n\nOn the question of the best hive to use in commercial bee-keeping, on\neither a large or small scale, it is hard to particularise.\nGeneralisation, however, is not difficult here. Every bee-master has his\nown ideas as to details, but all are happily agreed on the main\nconstructive principles. Experience has fairly well decided that a good\nqueen, under the modern system of intensive culture, will require for her\nbrood a comb-surface of about 1,800 square inches. A brood-nest of\nsmaller capacity than this is liable to cramp her operations at their\nhighest, and anything in excess of it will simply mean so much new honey\nlost to the super-chambers, where alone the bee-master requires it.\nHoney stored in the brood-nest, except during the off-season, is loss\ninstead of gain. The best hive, therefore, will contain just as many\nbrood-combs in movable frames as will ensure the right capacity; and all\ncomb-frames throughout the bee-farm must be of the same size, so that\nthey will be strictly interchangeable among the various hives. This is a\nvital point in successful bee-culture, because it enables the master not\nonly to equalise the strength of his stocks by transferring combs of\nhatching brood from one to the other; but he can also give to penurious\nstocks frames of sealed honey from the abundance of their neighbours, and\nhe can unite the weak colonies, thus rendering all strong.\n\nFor the rest, the hives must be so made that heat will be perfectly\nretained in the cold season, and as perfectly excluded during the\nsultriest time of year. Double walls round the brood-chamber are a\nnecessity in the changeable British climate, where chilly days are always\nprobable during ten months out of the twelve.\n\nAs well as honey-production, the bee-farmer will find an equal source of\nprofit in the production of wax. Just as there is nothing like leather,\nbeeswax holds its own as a marketable commodity in spite of paraffin\nsubstitutes. But if it is almost universally degraded by adulteration,\nthe fault lies with the beemen, who have never seriously attempted to\nmeet the demand for it. Wax-production on a large scale is perfectly\nfeasible, and there is little doubt that it could be developed into an\nimportant British industry, as it used to be in medi\u00e6val days. Yet these\nare times of revolution: the honey-bee may yet find herself entirely\nrestored to her old national avocation\u2014of bringing light to our darkness,\nand to our bodies one of the best and purest of foods.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\nBEE-KEEPING AND THE SIMPLE LIFE\n\n\nIT is a quality of English sunshine that it comes and goes capriciously,\nso that no man may be sure of the comradeship of his shadow from day to\nday. But when there is sunshine in England, it always seems an abiding,\npermanent force. The grey of yesterday, and the patter-song of the rain\non the leaves, were only a dream. You were sleeping under the changeless\nblue of a summer night, and had but a vision of weeping, drab skies, gone\nnow with the joy that comes in the morning. And to-morrow, when perhaps\nthe old wild scurry of storm-cloud is alive overhead, and all the house\nresounds with the runnel-music from the pouring eaves, still it will be\nonly a dream. Of a surety you will tell yourself so, as the sun breaks\nthrough the griddle of cloud, and the wind relents, and the Dutchman can\nget to his tailoring; and when you are stepping out amidst the swamp and\nglitter and rehabilitation of life, as glad of it all as the finches and\nbutterflies that sweep on before you down the lane. The sun shines: you\nknow it has always shone, changeless as Time itself.\n\nWith such a faith\u2014unfounded and therefore uncontestable\u2014I came under the\nglow of one brave June morning, threading field after field of blossoming\nclover until I stood at the gate of the bee-garden over against the hill.\nWith its name I had long been familiar, for in the county paper there was\nalways the little five-line advertisement, quaintly worded, announcing\nhoney for sale. But I had never yet seen it, nor, indeed, ever set foot\nin this part of the good Sussex land. So, on this brimming June morning,\ngiving rein for once to the indolent Shank\u2019s mare of moods that is fated\nto carry me, I set out into the bright sloth, the joyous hastelessness,\nof the day; and came at length to my destination\u2014to the bee-garden that\nnestles under the green Downland hills.\n\nIt was girt about with a tall hedge of hawthorn, smothered in snowlike\nblossom, with just that rosy tinge upon it which is the first hectic of\ndecay. Beyond the hedge I could see, stretching aloft, green\napple-boughs, whose full-blown posies were alive with the desperate\nhumming energy of countless bees. There was a blue wisp of smoke\ntrailing idly away from a chimney-stack, all that could be seen of the\nsnug thatched cottage within; and there were voices, a leisurely\nbaritone, a sudden peal of laughter high-pitched and obviously a woman\u2019s,\nand now and then a bar or two of an old song sung in an intermittent,\nabsent-minded way.\n\nIn one of the pauses of this song, I raised the latch of the gate. Its\nsharp click drew to its full lean height a figure at the end of the\ngarden, which was bending down in the midst of a wilderness of hives. As\nthe man came towards me coatless, his rolled-up shirt-sleeves baring wiry\nbrown arms to the hot June sun, I took in all the busy, quiet picture.\nThe red-tiled, winding path, the sea of old-fashioned garden-flowers on\nevery hand, billows of lilac and red-may and laburnum, shadowy blue deeps\nof forget-me-not, scarlet tulips amidst them like lighthouses, and\ndrifting shallows of amber mignonette. A decent house stood hard by, its\nwindows bright and clean as diamond-facets. There was a gay flicker of\nlinen on a line beyond. An old dog lolled in a straw-filled barrel. A\ncat kept company with a milk jug on the spotless doorstep. And\neverywhere there were beehives, each of a different harmonious shade of\ncolour, not ranged in stilted rows, but scattered here and there in twos\nand threes in the orderless order beloved of bees and unsuburban men.\n\nThe bee-master had keen grey eyes, set deep in a sun-blackened, honest\nface, and the ever-ready tongue of him was that of the beeman all the\nworld over. He was ripe and willing to talk of his work, explaining what\nhe was, and what he had done, as we slowly wandered through his domain.\nHe was a Londoner\u2014he told me\u2014at least, that was his fate half a dozen\nyears ago\u2014a City clerk, pale as the ledger-leaves that fluttered through\nhis fingers from nine to six of the working day. And at home, in a\ndreary desert of housetops called Nunhead\u2014whither may an unkind fate\nnever lure me\u2014his sisters sewed for a living, white-faced as himself.\nBut one day, in an old second-hand book-shop, he lit upon a threepenny\ntreasure\u2014a book on the management of bees. He read it as his train\ncrawled homeward on one stifling, freezing, fog-bound winter\u2019s night; and\nthere and then, in the mean, dirty cattle-box of a third-class carriage,\nin fancy the bee-garden was inaugurated, that has since developed into\nall I saw around me on that brave morning in June.\n\nIt was a long time in the doing, he told me, as we sauntered among the\nbusy hives, speaking with a delightful Sussex intonation already veneered\nupon his Cockney brogue\u2014a long and weary and scraping time. There was\nmoney to be saved, the capital needed for the enterprise; and this was no\neasy matter out of a total family income of forty shillings a week. But\nat last it was done, and well done. There came a day when the three of\nthem shook the dust of Nunhead from their feet, and took over possession\nof the little tumbledown cottage with its bare half-acre of neglected\nground. Well, those were hard times to begin with\u2014he said, with an\nunaccountable relish in the recollection;\u2014but now, look how all was\nchanged! He waved a triumphant, proudly proprietary arm around him. The\ncottage was sound and well furnished throughout. The three or four\nbought hives, with which he had started his business, had multiplied into\nsixty or seventy, all made by his own hands. Where had he got the bees?\nWell, that threepenny book had taught him a secret\u2014the art of\nbee-driving. Nearly all the cottagers for miles round were in the habit\nof sulphuring their bees to get at the honey. The first autumn, and\nevery autumn since then, he had gone to his neighbours and told them he\nwould take the bees out of the hives for them, and leave them all the\ncombs and a good trink-geld into the bargain, if they would let him have\nthe bees for his trouble. And they were more than willing. And thus he\nhad gradually built up his little principality of hives.\n\nBut, the profit of the thing? This, indeed, was nothing much to boast\nof. He sold all the honey and wax he got, sending it away, for the most\npart, by post, and extending the circle of his custom by little and\nlittle with every year. Taking the bad years with the good, he had made\na net return of \u00a32 for every hive; in bumper-seasons it was always much\nmore. It was not a great deal, but there were only three of them, and\ntheir wants were simple. Their greatest needs\u2014fresh air, peace, and\nquiet, the healthful life of the country\u2014these were to be had for nothing\nat all. And as for clothes\u2014you never know, until you give over trying to\nkeep up appearances, how very little appearances count in the world. At\nany rate, for them, the whole thing was a complete success. There were\nmen round about that country-side who farmed whole provinces, and still\ngrumbled; but here was he, getting peace and plenty from half an acre;\nand as for the girls, they did nothing but laugh and sing all day long.\n\nThus we wandered and talked; and I\u2014feigning ignorance of bee-matters,\nlest he might think I was but carrying coals to Newcastle in clumsy\ncharity\u2014bought honey, and asked many questions; and slowly the entire\nmeaning of what had been done by these emancipated slaves of City\nclerkdom was revealed. The bee-master pushed his old straw hat back over\nhis clever forehead, and lit the most comfortable pipe I had ever set\neyes on. He had evidently thought the whole thing out long ago, and got\nit down to its essential elements.\n\n [Picture: A forest apiary]\n\n\u201cWhat we are doing here,\u201d he said, \u201ccould be done by hundreds of others\nwho are still in London in what was once our old plight. Large bee-farms\nare all very well, but they are more or less a thing of the\nfuture\u2014something that is still to be evolved out of twentieth-century\nneeds. But the bee-garden has its immediate use and place in every\ndistrict where there is an average population. People generally have got\nout of the habit of eating honey because it is so seldom on sale in the\nshops; but if you steadily and continuously remind them of it, they will\nbuy, and soon grow to wonder how they did without it for so long. But it\nmust be set before them in an attractive way. Run-honey must be bright\nand pure to look at, and neatly bottled and labelled. If you sell honey\nin the comb, the section-boxes must be spotlessly clean and white. In\nthat old book that first led me to bee-keeping, it says that only the\nEnglish bee should be kept, because it is a better honey-gatherer. But,\nfrom the salesman\u2019s point of view, there is a much more weighty reason\nfor abjuring all foreign strains of bees. English bees leave a thin film\nof air between the honey and the cell cappings, and the result is that\nthe comb always looks perfectly white. But nearly all foreigners fill\ntheir cells to the brim, and this means that the finest honeycomb will\nhave a dark and dirty appearance, and no one will be tempted to buy.\nThat is the sort of thing a business-man thinks of first, so the old\ntraining days in London have not been altogether without their use even\nhere.\u201d\n\nThe song, aloof and desultory, that I had heard from the garden-gate, was\ngrowing clearer as we walked; and now we turned the house-corner, and\ncame upon more hives, with a neat, girlish figure busy among them; and,\nhard by, a tiny laundry-shed, wherein I caught a glimpse of brown arms\ndeep in a wash-tub, and heard the last stanza of the vagulous song.\n\n\u201cHetty, there,\u201d explained the bee-master, \u201chelps in the garden, and\u2014\nHelps, did I say? Why, she is far and away a better hand at it than I.\nThere is so much in hive-work that needs the light touch which only a\nwoman can give. And Deborah, she keeps house for us. Did you know that\nthe word Deborah was Hebrew for a honey-bee? But come and see where I\nmake the hives on winter days, and where we sling the honey, and fill the\nsuper-crates with the sections, and all the rest of it.\u201d\n\nHe showed me then his workshop and a little gauze-windowed shed where\nthere was a homemade honey-extractor\u2014a cunning, centrifugal thing by\nwhich the combs could be emptied and restored unbroken to the bees, to be\ncharged again and again. And there was a storehouse, where long rows of\nhoney-jars, and stacks of sections, and blocks of pale yellow wax were\nwaiting for the purchaser, and a packing-shed where the postboxes of\ncorrugated cardboard were made up. Finally there was pointed out to me,\nin a far-off corner of the garden, a donkey\u2014shaggy, well-fed, placidly\nbrowsing\u2014and, under a neighbouring pent-roof, a little cart that was a\ncuriosity in its way. Its wooden tilt was made to represent a big\nbeehive, and on it was painted the name of the bee-garden and a list of\nhive-products which it carried for sale. The bee-master put an admiring\nhand upon it.\n\n\u201cIt was all Hetty\u2019s idea,\u201d he said. \u201cLondon girls for pluck, you know!\nAnd she goes into the town with it once a fortnight in the season; takes\nit away crammed full, mind, and never brings back an ounce! Somehow or\nother, I think those girls ought to change names!\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nJourneying back to the railroad-station under the eternal English\nsunshine and through the chain of blossoming fields, I listened to the\nchant of the bees around me; and though it was the familiar sound of a\nlifetime, there was something in it then which I had never heard before.\nThe rich note rose and fell; died down to silence as the path led through\nimpregnable red-clover; swelled again as the land paled to the rosy hue\nof the sainfoin; burst out into a loud, glad symphony where a patch of\ncharlock blent its despised, uncoveted gold with the farmer\u2019s drill.\n\u201cYou thought you knew our ways of life from Alpha to Omega\u201d\u2014so seemed to\nrun, in fancy, the wavering refrain. \u201cYou have pried upon us day and\nnight, in season and out of season. You have chloroformed us, vivisected\nus, torn our dead sisters limb from limb to feed the cruel, glittering\neyes of that binocular of yours. You have come at last to think that\nthere was nothing about us, within or without or round about, that you\nhad not got to know. And here a common City clerk, turned tail on his\nhereditary duty, has shown you, in one short hour, a whole sheaf of\nthings about us which you\u2014Peeping Tom that you are!\u2014in a whole life\u2019s\nkeyhole-prying have never guessed. Out upon you! You deserve to have to\ndo with nothing better than bumble-bees for the rest of your days!\u201d\n\nFor the more I thought of little bee-gardens, such as the one I had just\nvisited, established here, there, and everywhere throughout the land, the\nplainer it became that this, after all, was a mission for the honey-bee\nthat had quite escaped me; and the fonder of the idea I grew. With\nbee-keeping on a grand scale there was the difficulty that an apiary\nmight become too large for the resources of the country about it,\nalthough it is all but certain that crops grown specially for bees can be\nmade to pay. But a small garden could never exhaust the land within its\nnecessary three-mile radius, and all the nectar its bees could gather\nwould be obtained free. Nunhead has done it gloriously, thought I,\ntramping steadily onward through the clover. And why not all the other\nNunheads that hem in the great cities? There must be plenty who love the\ndust and din, and are willing to stop there; so the little band of\nbee-gardeners will never be missed.\n\nAnd there was something else I thought of, too, as I strode along under\nthe English sunshine which lasts for ever, swinging my box of\nsuperfluous, yet much-prized honey as I went.\n\nThe song and that pleasant ripple of laughter\u2014they were in my ears still,\nand mingling with the labour-song of the wayside bees. Now, only a dozen\nmiles or so, away over the hill-tops in the blue Sussex weald, I knew of\njust such another bee-garden, where two brothers\u2014not Londoners this time,\nbut true-born Downland lads\u2014had well established themselves, were getting\ncomfortably off, but were still single men. And only a week ago they had\ndeplored this fact to me, and\u2014 But avast! Match-making was never yet to\nbe reckoned part of the Lore of the Honey-Bee.\n\n * * * * *\n\n THE END\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nA\n\n\nAdvice to Bee-masters, Butler, 35\nAfter-swarms, 189\nAthol Brose, 261\nAncient Roman Hives, 22\nAnglo-Saxon Bee-keeping, 22\nAntenn\u00e6 of Bee, Functions of, 155\nAnts and Bees, Analogy in Swarming, 178\nAristotle\u2019s Bee-lore, 2\nArtificial Food for Bees, 262\n\n\n\nB\n\n\nBarat-Anac, the Country of Tin, 19\nBee-bikes, 139\n breeding, 48\n burning, 48\n city: problems involved in construction, 202\n colony, Progress of, 97\n craft, Medi\u00e6val, 46\n culture in Ancient Britain, 21\n driving, 271\n farming, Success in, 262\n garden, Profits of, 271\n gardens, Scarcity of, in England, 257\n generation, 33\n hives in First Century, 4\n in Mythology, v\n keeping as a Livelihood, 261\n in Anglo-Saxon Times, 24\n Modern, 47\n larva, Spinning of Cocoon, 137\nBee life, Study of, 146\n the Old-Age Problem in, 134\n lines, 224\n masters, Medi\u00e6val, 29\n milk, its Nature and Uses, 123 166\n monarchy, 32\n scouts in Swarming, 186\n stings, 52\n superstitions, 40\n under Microscope, 148\nBees and Birds, 87\n and Holy Wafer, Story of, 37\n and Spiders, 41\n Cleansing-flights, 90\n English and Foreign, 220\n from Dead Lion, 46\n Generated in Flowers, 32\n in Ancient Egyptian Times, 6\n Knowledge of, among Ancients, 30\nBees\u2019 Sense of Smell, 62\nBreathing-system of Bee, 163\nBritish Beer (?) in Third Century, B.C. 21\nBrood-cells, Cappings of, 140\n Dimensions of, 108\n nest, Globular Form of, 31\nButler\u2019s \u201cFeminine Monarchie,\u201d 33\n\n\n\nC\n\n\nChapel built by Bees, 36\nClassic Bee-fathers, 28\nComb built Upwards, 217\n cell, Reasons for Hexagonal Shape of, 135 206\nComb-construction, 99, 197, 204\n Evolution of, 135\n Mathematics of, 208\n Supposed Laws of Mutual Interference and Pressure in, 212\n Preservation of Verticality in, 215\nCommunal Mind in Hive, 69\nCorsica\u2019s Tribute of Wax to Romans, 16\nCountry Housewife\u2019s Garden, 42\n\n\n\nD\n\n\nDead Bees, Method of Bringing to Life, 46\nDecline of Mead-drinking among Saxons, 26\nDiscipline in Hive, 14\nDivine Origin of Bees, 6\nDrone, 14, 41, 43, 74, 118\n and Worker-eggs, Theory of Laying, 122\n His Place in the Hive, 237\nDrone-breeding Queen, 110\n cells, 213\n fly, 10\nDrones in Winter, 246\n Mid-day Flight, 64\n Slaughter of, 244\n\n\n\nE\n\n\nEgg-stealing by Bees, 111\nEmergency Comb, 201\nEnglish Black Bee, 76\nEthelwold\u2019s Allowance of Mead to Monks, 24\nEvolution in Hive-life, xviii, 79\nEyes of Bee, Compound and Simple, 154\n\n\n\nF\n\n\nFanning-army, 59, 92\n Strength of Air-current, 62\nFertile Worker, Anomaly of, 144\nFirst Bee-hunter, xi\nFlight of Bee, Mechanism of, 157\nExtent of, 224\n of the Drones, 240\nFoot of Bee, Construction of, 151\nFreemasonry of Bee-keeping, 195\n\u201cFurther Discovery of Bees,\u201d by Rusden, 1679, 31\n\n\n\nG\n\n\nGlandular System of Bee, 167\nGuard-bees of Hive, 62\n\n\n\nH\n\n\nHexagonal Principle in Hive, 134\nHive, Division of Labour in, 83\n life, System and Order in, 128\n Preparation for Winter, 253\nHiving Swarms, 182\nHoney as Hair-restorer, 45\n a Manufactured Product, 222\n and Sugar: Comparative Values as Food, 259\n\u201cHoney-bearing Reed,\u201d 23\nHoney-bee, Origin of, 78\n bees, Varying Intelligence of, 143\n bee\u2019s Year, Beginning of, 84\n comb, Construction of, 137\n crops, 226\n dew, 226\n flow, Duration of, 95, 221\n from the Skies, 5\n Imports, 258\n in Medi\u00e6val Cookery, 23\n In Middle Ages, 24\n Medicinal Properties of, 44, 260\n Preparation of, for Market, 273\nHuber\u2019s Leaf-hive, 30\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIdeal Hive, The, 265\nInfant Mortality in Bee-life, 63\nInsects: Reasons for Bodily Construction, 158\nIsle of Honey, 18, 22\nItalian Bee, 77\n\n\n\nJ\n\n\nJaws of Bee, Construction of, 154\n\n\n\nL\n\n\nLarva-cocoons, Differences in 138\nLarva, Hatching of, 72\nLaying Queen\u2019s Attendants, 107\nLegs of Bee, 149\nLife of the Hive, 54\n of the Queen, 119\nLongevity of Bee, 15\n\n\n\nM\n\n\nMaster-Bees, 42\nMatriarchy in the Hive, xiii\nMead: Ancient Recipe, 26\n in Anglo-Saxon Times, 24, 25\n like Canary-sack, 27\n making, Modern, 26\nModern Bee-culture: Its Infuence on Bee-life, 190\n Hive, Capacity of, 95\nMorat, 25\nMoses Rusden, King\u2019s Bee-Master, 31\n\n\n\nN\n\n\nNectar: Temperature required for its Secretion, 228\nNight in the Bee-Garden, 60\nNursery-work in the Hive, 71\n\n\n\nO\n\n\nOil of Wax, 45\nOld Bee-garden, 51\nOverseers in Hive, 64\nOxen-born Bees, 7\nOxymel, 44\n\n\n\nP\n\n\nParthenogenesis, 105, 122\nPigment, 25\nPliny and the Bee, 11\nPliny\u2019s Mirror-stone Hive, 30\nPoison-sac of Bee: Its Contents, 223\nPollen from Evening Primrose, 34\n gathering, 32, 55\n loads, Homogeneity of, 57\n Sources of, 56\nPrehistoric Man and Honey-Bee, x\nPropolis: Its Nature and Uses, 57, 204\n\n\n\nQ\n\n\nQueen and Worker: Differences in Bodily Structure, 101\n Eggs, Identity of, 100\nQueen-bee, 34, 41, 68, 71, 86\n Apparent Rulership of, 96\n Battle-cry of, 166, 193\n Death of, 115\n Duration of Life, 255\n Fecundity of, 72\n Fertilisation of, 121\n Hatching of, 113\n Her Mating-flight, 72, 117\n in Swarming-time, 178\n Physiology of, 101\n Rearing of, 103\n Supersession of, 109\n the Original Female Bee, 98\n Workers\u2019 Management of, 123\n cell, Construction of, 100, 110\n larva Feeding of, 113\n Rearing of, 99\nQueenless Hives, 105, 144\nQueens: Five in Single Hive, 96\n Mutual Antagonism, 114\n Plurality of, in Hive, 94\n\n\n\nR\n\n\nReason and Instinct, 69\n\u201cRinging the Bees,\u201d Roman Origin of, 38\nRobber-bees, 144, 250\n\n\n\nS\n\n\nSamson and the Lion, 11\nSanitation in the Hive, 88\nSexes, Proportion of, in Hive, 124\nSex-question in Hive, xvi\nSirius, the Honey-Star, 13\nSkep, Ancient Method of Dressing, 37\nSmall-holder and Bee-keeping, 259\nSocialism and Hive-life, 75, 130\nSoot-fungus, 229\nSororicide in the Hive, 120\nSources of Honey, 230\nSting of Bee, Construction of, 170\nSugar-cane, First Introduction of, 23\nSwarm-hiving, First Century, 5\n in Middle Ages, 37\nSwarm in May, 174\n Legal Rights in, 40\n Site selected by, 185\nSwarming, 38\n Impulse, 96, 175\n Objects of, 189\n Signs of, 182\n\n\n\nT\n\n\nTemper in Bees, 219\nTemperature of Hive, 91, 161\nTongue of Bee, Construction of, 152\n\n\n\nU\n\n\nUndertakers in Hive, 63\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nVariation in Hive-rules, 94\nVentilation of Hive, 60, 91\nVirgil as Bee-master, 2\nVoice-apparatus of Bee, 163\n\n\n\nW\n\n\nWax, 15, 198\n Ancient Sources of, 16\n Bees\u2019 Method of Working, 201\n in the Bronze Age, xi\n Medicinal Properties of, 44\n making, Food Consumed during, 161\n production, a Profitable Industry, 266\nWater, Need of, in Hive, 84\nWinter-feeding, Method of, 86\n life in Hive, 86\nWorker-bee, 81, 85, 233\n Age of, 85, 254\n Artificial Creation of, 130\n Birth of, 140\n Early Life in Hive, 141\n Glandular System of, 142\n Supremacy of, in Hive, 68\n Various Occupations of, 127\n larv\u00e6, Feeding of, 131\n\n * * * * *\n\n PRINTED BY\n BILLING AND SONS, LTD.\n GUILDFORD\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTE.\n\n\n{218} Dr. Herbert MacDonald Phillpotts, of Kingswear, Devon.","title":"The Lore of the Honey-Bee","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":70625}